Harry Potter and the Alchemist's Secret
by Sundance Coyote
Summary: HP and the Philosopher's Stone rewrite in which the Dursleys choose to try to stamp magic out of Harry by spoiling him (like Dudley) instead of abusing him. How will an antihero, Slytherin Harry face his destiny against Voldemort? And when Draco Malfoy offers him friendship, will he accept? Updates on Wednesdays.
1. Chapter 1: The Boy They Loved

Harry Potter and the Alchemist's Secret:

 **Chapter 1: The Boy They Loved**

"Isn't he beautiful, Vernon?"

Vernon Dursley watched his wife putter around the kitchen. She was preparing a bottle to heat up for her nephew. Accepting defeat, he settled down into one of the dining chairs as he eyed the blanket-wrapped bundle across from him on the table.

Vernon and Petunia, his wife, had always been proud to say that they were perfectly normal. Each day, Vernon rose at six, ate breakfast and worked 9-5 at a very normal firm called Grunnings, which made drills. His wife stayed home and cared for their one-year-old son Dudley and gossiped with the neighbors. He liked to think their family the most pleasantly ordinary on their street, but this new development threatened to change all that.

"And the boy will be staying then, Petunia dear?" he asked with an overly forced attempt at a casual tone, as if he had no opinion on the matter, whatsoever.

As predicted, his wife's thin frame stiffened immediately. She put the bottle into the microwave and turned round, her angular, bony features threatening to pop out of her face.

"You don't expect we could do anything else?! He is her only son!"

Vernon Dursley slumped further down in his seat. He didn't know much about his wife's sister-having only met her a couple of times-at their wedding and Dudley's baby shower, but he did know that she and her little family were about as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. Petunia's sister Lily and her husband, whose name he could not remember, had gone to the same boarding school as children...some place in Scotland for children who couldn't handle being around normal kids like Petunia, who'd gone to her local public school.

Lily and her husband were not like other, regular people They could do things. Strange things...unnatural things...because they were…(he hardly dared even think the world)...wizards. And there was no way their son couldn't be like that given who his parents were, right? Vernon eyed the little bundle again-half expecting that the baby might shoot murderous sparks at him through its fingertips, but it merely rolled over in its bassinet.

For years before the were married, Petunia hadn't even told Vernon she had a sister because she was worried about how he would react...worried he might judge her for how her sister was...but once she'd revealed the truth, Vernon laughed and said he wouldn't think any less of her.

His own sister, Marge, for example had never claimed to have magic powers, but was probably one of the most unpleasant and lonely people in living existence… so really no family tree, however normal, was without its weaker branches.

Still...it all made Vernon Dursley more uncomfortable than he would like to feel in his own kitchen.

"I know what you're thinking," Petunia began hesitantly. She placed the bottle down in front of him and the smell of formula permeated the air like bad eggs. Meanwhile, his wife leaned over the bassinet and lifted out the baby, who was still wrapped in a thin white blanket and only visible by a single tuft of thick black hair sticking out over the top of the little bundle. "He won't be like them...no necessarily anyway," Petunia continued.

"And if he is?"

"Then we will explain everything to him when he's older...come here to Aunt Petunia, darling," she cooed at the baby as she brought him to rest against her shoulder.

"What's his name?"

"Harry...charmingly ordinary name, don't you think?"

But Vernon frowned. He knew that something terrible had happened to Petunia's sister and brother-in-law. He knew it by the way her expression changed from shock to anger to grief when she read the letter pinned to the baby's bassinet. But she didn't seem ready to talk about it yet and had busied herself at once with taking care of her nephew and explaining hurriedly that he had arrived to stay with them. No matter how awkward things sometimes became between their two families, his wife loved her sister and would love Lily's son all the same. For Vernon, his trust in Petunia would have to be enough to care for the boy as she did...or at the very least, tolerate him. And as for the other nonsense...perhaps if they raised the boy to have as normal a childhood as possible, it would all just fade into year after year of Petunia's love, or be absorbed by it.

 **A/N: So there it is...just a little snippet/taste of an idea I had. I'm definitely curious to know what you think :) Basically in this story, my idea is that the Dursleys themselves are the same, personality and values wise, but the only difference is that they go on to spoil Harry as much as they spoil Dudley and even though Harry's personality will be the same innately, how will his values and ambitions be different as a result of this upbringing?**


	2. Chapter 2: The Voice in the Glass

**Chapter 2: The Voice in the Glass**

 _Ten Years Later…_

Just over ten years had passed since Harry Potter arrived on his aunt and uncle's doorstep under a hooded bassinet and wrapped in blankets. Their home at Number 4, Privet Drive hardly changed since that fateful night and the photos on the mantelpiece and adorning the living room walls did nothing to suggest that Harry Potter had not always been a part of the Dursley family.

Dudley Dursley and Harry Potter, however, had changed significantly. They were no longer babies and the photographs reflected this, showing two boys: one large and blond, the other, smaller and with dark hair, riding their first bicycles, on a carousel at the fair, playing video games and being hugged and adored by Vernon and Petunia. Only the physical appearances of the two boys served to suggest that they were not biologically brothers as they might as well have been.

On the particular sunny Saturday morning our story begins, both boys were asleep in their bedrooms, unaware at the moment, that one of their lives was about to change forever.

When Harry Potter did wake, he yawned and stretched and savored the fact that it was, as it so happened, his birthday. He heard noises down in the kitchen which meant that his Aunt Petunia was already up and getting breakfast ready. He heard the clink of dishes rubbing together and the sound of a frying pan hissing against the stovetop. He settled comfortably back on his pillow and tried to remember the dream he had been having...he was flying...and then there was a flash of bright green light. He had th unusual feeling he'd had the same dream before.

Finally, Harry rubbed a bit of sleep out of his eyes and got to his feet. Eleven...he was eleven. His cousin Dudley had turned eleven just a month before and he'd said that being eleven wasn't much different from being ten except people wouldn't stop asking you if you were excited for secondary school.

After he was dressed, Harry made his way downstairs, where the kitchen table was laden with present all wrapped in the same shiny blue paper.

"Here he comes! The birthday boy!" Aunt Petunia grinned at him as she enveloped him in a hug.

"Happy birthday, Harry!" His uncle Vernon said, offering him a hearty wave from behind the morning paper.

"Thanks," said Harry as he sat down across from his uncle and pulled a plate of eggs and bacon towards him. "Where's Dudley?" he asked through a mouthful of scrambled egg and ketchup.

"Still sleeping, I expect. But we can get him up soon enough," replied Aunt Petunia briskly. "Would you like to open your presents, darling?"

Harry nodded and pulled one of the parcels across the table towards him. He was ripping off the paper when Dudley arrived in the kitchen wearing a pair of pajamas with little soccer balls on them.

"Harry's got Clash of Mortals?! HeynofairIwantedthatformybirthdayandyousaidIwastooyoung!" he shouted in one breath when he caught sight of the newly unwrapped computer game in Harry's hands. Dudley lunged across the table for it with a ham-like hand, but Harry was faster and swung the game up out of his cousin's reach. Because he was so much smaller and skinnier, nobody ever suspected Harry could be faster than Dudley, so he was often able to maintain an element of surprise in games and sports.

"Knock it off before you break something!" Uncle Vernon barked gruffly, slapping his newspaper down on the table.

Dudley sat back down at once, looking even more like a pig in a wig than usual with his plump face completely put out beneath his glossy blond hair.

"36," he mumbled. "Harry's got 36 presents...I only got 35 for my birthday!" Dudley wailed after evidently counting all of Harry's presents. Dudley liked to bring up at every opportunity he could that he thought Harry was 'the favorite child.' Aunt Petunia always dismissed this, saying she had no favorites, though Dudley was always keen to make the accusation whenever things didn't go his way.

"Sweetums, I think you're forgetting that alien game you wanted from Mummy and Daddy-remember? It was backordered and came later," she offered hopefully, but before Dudley could respond, the phone rang and Aunt Petunia dashed off to answer it. Meanwhile, Harry unwrapped fourteen additional computer games, a remote-control airplane and a racing bike.

"Marge's ill, ate some sort of funny whelk," Aunt Petunia informed them as she re-entered the room. Marge was Uncle Vernon's sister-a plump, beefy woman with a squashed-looking face, like a pug. Harry had always gotten the impression that she didn't like him for some reason...probably because he wasn't her real nephew like Dudley was...but he couldn't be sure.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon discussed Aunt Marge's misfortune while Harry opened the remainder of his presents and Dudley looked on greedily. Notable parcels included a new computer, a gold wristwatch and several new FIFA jerseys.

An hour later, Harry, clad in one of his new jerseys, and Dudley, whining incessantly about how Harry's computer model was better than his, were sitting in the back seat of Uncle Vernon's car on the way to the zoo to celebrate Harry's birthday.

While they drove, Aunt Petunia hummed along to a pop song she liked on the radio while Uncle Vernon engaged in one of his favorite pastimes-complaining; this morning, about celebrities.

"Ruddy people! Think every time they sneeze the public will come running to wipe their noses! It's self-centered, that's what it is!"

""I think it'd be cool to be famous," Harry interjected, though he immediately wished he hadn't. He would have rather avoided the lecture from Uncle Vernon about the "common, self-made man" and "moral fiber."

Though Harry remained curious. All his life, he had been extraordinarily...ordinary. Sometimes, he even tried to pay extra careful attention to anything that rendered him even the slightest bit special, but always came up short.

He remembered distinctly, one time in the third grade when his teacher assigned the class to write a journal entry in response to the prompt: "I am special because…" Harry Potter, the average-sized boy with the average-looking glasses and all-too ordinary family, wrote about the only thing he could think of that really set him apart: a scar on his forehead he'd had for as long as he could remember-it was long and thin and shaped like a bolt of lightning.

Though he wished he had a bit more interesting story behind the way he got it than the story Aunt Petunia told him the first time he'd asked: "you got it in a car crash shortly after you were born."

She didn't like to talk about this car crash and it wasn't until Harry got older that he began to understand why: it was the car crash that had killed Harry's parents and he was often just as uncomfortable asking questions about them as Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were to answer said questions.

He still remembered the afternoon of his ninth birthday, when Aunt Petunia had presented him with an album of photos she'd compiled of his parents. She'd had tears running down her face and Harry looked at the photos with a twinge of discomfort that he too could not produce tears over the parents he could not scarcely remember, but thought he was supposed to cry about all the same.

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The weather only continued to improve as morning became afternoon, so the zoo was crowded with families as a result. His aunt and uncle bought he and Dudley each a large chocolate ice cream in a delicious waffle cone at the entrance and it was close enough to lunchtime that there was hardly even a line at the ticket counter.

Since they couldn't take their ice creams inside, they visited the outdoor exhibits first, following the gravel paths on a glossy fold-up map past lions sunning themselves on rocks and a group of gorillas that, Harry joked, looked a lot like Dudley except that they weren't blond.

Harry's favorite habitat was by far the amur leopard jungle. The small, lithe creatures looked fairly non-threatening that afternoon, concealing their spotted pelts in an enclosure full of dense plants and bracken, but he knew they were fierce predators when they needed to be.

"The Amur Leopard can run with a speed of 60 kilometers per hour and are able to leap more than six meters-Dudley, that's longer than our house!" he exclaimed excitedly after reading off the information placard.

"That's boring. The cheetah is way faster," said Dudley, who shuffled away with considerable disinterest.

The family ate lunch in the zoo restaurant-a meal complete with all of Harry and Dudley's favorite unhealthy treats that they were only allowed to have on special occasions. They slurped from large sodas while eating double cheeseburgers with chili fries and then topped it all off with large knickerbocker glories that had extra ice cream on top. The restaurant staff even came to their table to sing happy birthday!

Overall, thought Harry as they headed towards the reptile house after lunch, it was shaping up to be a pretty good birthday...though he didn't know then just how exciting it would end up.

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The reptile house was cool and dark compared to the sun-washed July heat outside. The walls of the place were made of realistic-looking imitation stone separated by thick glass tanks containing all number of creatures that slithered, glowed and burrowed in damp caves.

Harry and Dudley sprinted from tank to tank speculating on which creature was the most poisonous. In the end, they decided on an intimidating-looking snake with dark red coils that at the moment was wrapped twice around a boulder half the size of Uncle Vernon's car.

"Let's see if we can get it to move!" Dudley grinned eagerly and began rapping his fingertips against the glass. They waited. Nothing happened. Dudley pounded his fists against the glass, but still, the snake remained motionless.

"Maybe it died," Harry suggested, but Dudley shook his head.

"Nah, it can't have. It probably just didn't hear us," said Dudley and he began pounding on the glass even more loudly.

" _Or maybe it's tired of lying here, day after day, with lots of stupid people looking in on you…"_

Harry turned on his heel, looking to identify the source of that low, rasping voice...but no one was there. He peered around again, half-expecting to see Uncle Vernon lurking behind a trash can ready to pop out and try to scare them again, but he and Aunt Petunia were across the reptile house looking at a coral-blue lizard.

"What're you doing?" Dudley asked.

"Trying to find whoever just tried to talk to us…"

"Harry, no one tried to talk to us," said Dudley, suddenly looking frightened. Harry scratched his head thoughtfully. He'd definitely heard someone with a funny hissing voice trying to sound like...no. Harry looked back at the snake. To his surprise, it had raised its head up away from its body so its eyes were almost level with Harry's. He tilted his head to one side as he eyed it curiously.

Then...it _winked_.

Harry's eyes widened. He winked back, an exchange not missed by Dudley.

"Harry, what's going on? What're you playing at?" he asked, but Harry was more interested in the snake. Could it really...hear them?

"Are we bothering you?" he asked the snake and it nodded vigorously.

"Sorry."

" _Don't be. I'm used to it by now,_ " it replied in that same low, rasping, but distinctly human-sounding voice. This time, Harry even saw its mouth moving. It flicked its tail towards it information placard at one distinct, bolded line: BRED IN CAPTIVITY.

Harry frowned and apologized again. Bred in captivity...how boring for a snake. Even more boring than being rather ordinary and uninteresting. Harry at least, got to leave his house.

"What's going on?" Dudley asked again, this time even more fearfully.

"It can hear us, Dudley! It can talk! Try it!"

Dudley eagerly pushed Harry aside and stood facing the snake, his cheeks pressed up against the glass. He began making a series of strange fake choking noises that caused the snake to look back at Harry, eyes glinting with amusement.

" _He isn't like us,"_ it said. Harry didn't know what else to do but nod.

"Hey! No fair! Why won't it talk to me?!" Dudley shouted and Harry began to sense a huge tantrum coming on.

"Don't try to talk like a snake. You'll just insult it. Use your own voice-talk like yourself."

"You're not!"

"Yeah, I am! You heard me!"

"No-you were all like-" Dudley began making the fake choking noises again.

"Was not!"

"Was too!" Then Dudley shoved him. Harry shoved him back. Dudley pushed him again, this time with the palms of his hands instead of his shoulder, but still not with much force. So Harry pushed him back-also not with much force, only meaning to knock him back against the glass a little bit...but something happened. Dudley screamed and Harry jumped back. The glass front of the snake's tank was gone and the serpent was slithering towards Harry and his cousin with great speed. However, rather than attack them, it snapped playfully at their heels and slithered out onto the floor. Harry and Dudley stood there in shock as Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia ran towards them and all around, other zoogoers were freaking out and looking for the exit.

Even through all the commotion, however, Harry could have sworn he heard a low rasping voice hiss " _thankssssss_ " as the snake passed.

"But...I didn't…" Harry murmured, though the snake didn't look back.

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One day, perhaps, they would all look back on this and laugh. That day was not today...thought Harry through the series of events that afternoon, which together characterized his strangest ever birthday and a seemingly never-ending onslaught of questions.

First, there was the keeper of the reptile house. Harry and Dudley didn't have to say much here, as Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon did most of the talking for them, reminding the zookeeper over and over again of how impossible it was for two eleven-year-olds to remove the glass at all, let alone with dozens of people watching. But the man just apologized if his tone sounded accusatory, made Aunt Petunia a hot cup of tea, reimbursed Uncle Vernon's admission ticket money and sent the four of them on their way.

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The ride home passed in a strange, ominous silence with Dudley still too shocked to say anything and Harry worried the zoo would somehow find a way to blame the snake's escape on them. Had they perhaps hit a button while shoving each other around? What if someone saw? Could they be arrested? Was it a crime to set a deadly snake loose on a zoo full of people? Probably…

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Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia must have been worried too, because the first thing they did when they got home was question Harry and Dudley separately.

"I don't know! One minute the glass was there and then it was gone-it was like magic!" Harry exclaimed to Uncle Vernon. He'd decided against mentioning that he and Dudley had been trying to talk to the snake, owing to his uncle's distaste for anything out of the ordinary and instead stuck to his story that he and his cousin had just been playing around as usual when the snake escaped.

He feared Dudley might have said something incriminating though, because Aunt Petunia soon entered the room without him and spoke in a hushed voice to Uncle Vernon for what seemed like hours before she finally rounded on Harry. She and Uncle Vernon both looked white-faced and frightened and Harry, who was expecting the worst (would they think he was mad? would he have to leave Privet Drive forever and go live in a place for nutters?) was surprised when Aunt Petunia pulled a crumpled bit of paper out of her pocket and extended it nervously to him.

After smoothing out its wrinkles, he could see that it was an envelope.

"What's this?" he asked. Uncle Vernon wouldn't meet his eyes. Aunt Petunia shut hers, reopened them and sighed heavily.

"Harry dear, there's something you've got to know."

A/N: Many thanks to all the people who've already followed this story! I'm super excited to keep writing it. With this chapter, I tried to stick mostly to canon and just show the sublte differences between the way the Dursleys treat Harry and the outcome of how everything will be different when it comes to Hogwarts/Voldemort. Obviously it's about to very different from canon since the Dursleys seem poised to be the ones to explain everything to Harry rather than Hagrid. Let me know what you think! :)

xoxo,

SunDance


	3. Chapter 3: A Letter From His World

**Chapter 3: The Letter From His World**

"Look at you...eleven. Nearly grown," commented Aunt Petunia fondly, still clutching the envelope. "You do look a lot like your dad...but you've got your mother's eyes."

Harry subconsciously reached a hand to his glasses, which covered his bright green eyes so different from Aunt Petunia's brown ones and Uncle Vernon and Dudley's grey ones.

"We don't talk about them much, I know," continued Aunt Petunia. "We wanted you to have a normal childhood, really...but I worry we may have done you a disservice...and after today-"

Something seemed...off. And Harry feared the gravity of the whole snake thing may have been more severe than he realized.

"Dudley and I didn't have anything to do with that snake getting out, I swear! The glass just vanished-like magic!" said Harry, echoing what he'd already told Uncle Vernon.

"Yes...magic...you know Harry dear, when you were younger you used to talk about feeling somehow different and I used to tell you you weren't, that you were as much like the other children as could be expected…"

"Well, I am," Harry said resolutely. He wasn't mad. He couldn't be. And his childhood had been normal...and routine. Everything he and Dudley had ever wanted, they'd gotten. He thought back to anyone he knew who'd ever done anything mad at school...like rat-faced Piers Polkiss who'd tried to beat up Dudley...Uncle Vernon had remarked gruffly that there was "something wrong with him" while Aunt Petunia had lamented that "maybe he was abused at home." What reason would Harry have to be messed up?

"Did you ever wonder where your parents learned...everything?" Aunt Petunia promoted so softly that at first Harry wasn't so sure he'd heard her.

" _Everything_? What do you mean everything?"

That was when Uncle Vernon seemed to find his voice.

"Petunia dear, we don't have to tell him!" He exclaimed rather suddenly and looking kind of purple in the face as he did so. "We can wait until he's older...I see no reason to-"

"-we have to tell him, Vernon! He's getting to the age when he's going to be out in the world-what if he finds out from someone else?"

"They'd have no right to tell him! We swore when we took him, we'd try to stamp it out-and we've done a very good job if I do say so myself!"

"But we can't shelter him forever!"

"He's just a boy, Petunia!"

"Harry you're a wizard!" Aunt Petunia squeaked out finally. Uncle Vernon fell silent at once. For a few minutes, all Harry could hear was the sound of their own tense, labored breathing as he looked back and forth from his aunt to his uncle waiting for someone to break rank and laugh. He had to give them credit-it was a very weird, albeit creative, prank.

But no one laughed. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia stared at him all too intently, as though waiting for him to turn into a slug or some other disgusting creature. His aunt held out the letter by two fingers like it was burning her, and Harry took it with an impish grin at how well thought out it all was. It was a thick creamy kind of envelope, like the paper old documents were printed on, and written on the front in bright green ink so that there could be no mistaking its intended recipient:

Mr. H Potter

The Second Largest Bedroom

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

The letter had no stamp and no return address, further indicating to Harry that it had never been through the mail and was all a part of an elaborate Dursley birthday joke. He turned it over, playing along, and caught sight of a purple wax seal holding the envelope shut. The seal was a coat of arms of some sort, featuring a lion, a badger, an eagle and a snake each in one of four quadrants surrounding a large H. Harry was really starting to admire the effort that went into this prank-where had they found a wax seal?

He tore open the envelope and found only two thin sheets of paper within, the first of which, was a letter written on the same thick old fashioned paper.

 _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

 _Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_

 _Dear Mr. Potter,_

 _We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

 _Yours sincerely,_

 _Minerva McGonagall_

 _Deputy Headmistress_

Harry's head was swimming with questions, but he settled on silence because he wasn't sure which to ask first...or if he should just laugh. The Dursleys, however, looked more serious than ever. They all looked at each other in an ongoing, eerie, silence until finally, Aunt Petunia burst into tears.

"Aunt Petunia, I'm sorry. I just don't understand."

Uncle Vernon cleared his throat and for once, Harry hoped to hear his voice of reason.

"Well, of course you don't have to go if you don't want to. You'll always be welcome to go to Smeltings with Dudley."

"It's real...this school...magic...me being a wizard...it's all _real_?"

Aunt Petunia sniffed and wiped her eyes with the corner of her shirt sleeve.

"Of course it's real. How could you not be a wizard with Lily being...the talented witch she was," she said and Harry could almost detect a note of bitterness there, when she mentioned his mother by name.

"You knew all along and you never told me?!"

"Well, we wanted you to have a normal life," Uncle Vernon out in, but Harry could feel anger boiling inside of him and threatening to spill over. He wanted answers and he wanted them now.

"Why didn't you tell me!?" He demanded again, glancing quickly from Aunt Petunia to Uncle Vernon and starting to understand how Dudley felt right before he had a huge tantrum.

"Well...there's something else. Darling, you're famous," she admitted with noticeable hesitation. Harry gave a loud laugh. His aunt and uncle hated famous people...this had to all be a joke. But Aunt Petunia wasn't laughing and her eyes continued to threaten more tears.

"It all started when my sister got her letter when she was eleven and went off to that school," she explained. "My parents were so proud to have a witch in the family."

"Hold on...if my mother _was_ a witch...wouldn't that make you a witch, too?"

"No. Whatever...genetics...carry the gene that made her a witch did not pass on to me. Probably because neither of our parents were magic and we had so very little of it in our blood…although I sometimes wished I was a witch, too...especially when I was a child." Aunt Petunia trailed off and gazed past Harry until Uncle Vernon chortled and said something about how she was a good, normal, reasonable woman...earning him a look from his wife so reproachful, that he added hastily that she still surely would be all of those things even if she were a witch.

"She met your father there...at that school," Aunt Petunia said, turning her gaze back to Harry.

"My dad was a wizard, too?" Harry didn't know much about genetics...or science at all, really, having only just completed primary school...but if both of his parents could do magic, then it would make sense that he could, too? Right? He expected his aunt to elaborate, but she was sharing a solemn look with Uncle Vernon again.

"We're going to have to tell him, Vernon. Everything. If he decides to go, he'll know soon enough...all the kids will know...and it's better he find out from us…"

"Find out what!?" Never in his life did Harry remember having so many questions. How much of his story didn't he know?

"...How...how your parents died," said Aunt Petunia nervously.

"I thought they died in a car crash?!" Harry exclaimed. He was starting to get that rising angry feeling again. Surely it couldn't be a prank. Joke about magic and escaped snakes and celebrities they might, but never about his parents.

"It begins with a person called...oh they'll all know his name, it's horrible...even though no one likes saying it."

"Who knows his name? Who's horrible?!" Harry demanded.

"He went bad," Aunt Petunia replied. "Worse than anyone, like...Jack the Ripper...and that man from that horror movie you and Dudley wanted to see...but worse because he could do magic. His name...was Voldemort...well Vernon and I don't know much about how he started out...you may have to get someone at school to fill in the gaps for you, if you decide to go of course." She paused as if wondering whether or not she should continue. Harry and Uncle Vernon even, hung on to every word.

"Well he started looking for followers about twenty years ago, when your parents were still in school...and people joined him because they were scared and he was powerful."

"Like...like Hitler?" commented Harry, who'd learned all about World War II in school already.

"A bit like that, yes."

"He didn't like people who were Jewish?"

"No, not exactly darling. He didn't like people who weren't pure wizards...people who had no magic blood in them, the way my sister described to me."

"People like my mother and...me?" Harry asked as realization set in. Aunt Petunia had said she wasn't a witch because her parents weren't...which meant that even if Lily, his mother, was a witch, she wasn't pure witch. And neither was Harry.

Aunt Petunia nodded.

"What...what did he do to people whose blood he didn't like? Did he...was he like Hitler with that, too?"

Aunt Petunia nodded again. Harry looked down at the carpet. He almost didn't want to hear it because he already knew...Hitler, after all, had killed thousands of people. But he still had questions. And it might be his only chance to get Aunt Petunia to talk about all this.

"So he came to our house and...my parents...because he didn't like them...but then how did I get this?" Harry pushed up his hair and revealed the lightning bolt scar he'd always had and prided himself on. He remembered wishing he had an interesting story to tell about how he'd gotten it, but now he was about to get a story no one would ever believe.

Aunt Petunia, however, had started crying very hard again. "He...killed my sister and her husband and then...he...they said he tried to…you were just a year old..." She choked out and pointed at Harry's scar, seeming quite unable to go on.

"He tried to kill me? Voldemort tried to kill... _me_?" Harry echoed in his disbelief.

She and Uncle Vernon, who Harry had almost forgotten was in the room with them, nodded slowly.

"But why didn't it work?"

"No one knows. But that's why you're famous…they were calling you the boy who lived when your were brought to us...the boy who cannot die...that's why we wanted to raise you with as much normalcy as possible...didn't want all that on your shoulders...until you were older and...ready" said Aunt Petunia.

Harry suddenly remembered the flash of green light that he'd been seeing in his dreams for years and associating with the car crash. He could see it in his mind now, as bright and imposing as if it were happening again right before his eyes...only this time, he also remembered hearing a cold, cruel laugh and felt his stomach turn.

"What happened to him? To Voldemort? Did he go to jail?"

"No, from what Uncle Vernon and I understand he just...disappeared. Maybe he's dead, maybe not...but something about you stopped him. It makes you more famous. You, as only a baby, defeated one of the most evil wizards in history. No one has seen or heard of him since that night."

"But there must be some mistake...some sort of mix up…" Harry stammered. " I can't be a...a wizard. I've always been so normal. I can't do magic! I'm...just Harry."

"Don't you remember making anything happen, anything you couldn't explain, when you were angry...or excited...or scared?"

Harry shook his head. Aside from the snake thing, he couldn't remember anything of the sort ever happening.

"Remember whenever I used to give you haircuts when you were little? You hated them...used to scream and cry and swat away the scissors saying you'd rather your hair grow all over the place...and then you'd wake up the next day with your hair all grown back like I'd never even cut it...just little things like that. Things we tried to make you forget or pass of as normal kid stuff...but the disappearing glass today-"

"If I did do it, then I didn't do it on purpose!" Harry protested.

"I know, Sweetums," said Aunt Petunia. "But if you go to this school, you'll learn how to control and use your magic like Lily did, but of course it's all entirely up to you where you go."

Harry thought very intently about this as he knew he needed to. If it truly was his choice...then he could go to this Hogwarts and his life would change forever...or he could go to Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings, with Dudley and forget about all of this forever. Hadn't he always longed to be famous? Dreamed of something like this-of being more than this exceptionally average boy in the suburbs who'd just grow up to work in an office like his uncle? Maybe Dudley would be content with that...but he, Harry, thought that there had to be more to life than playing on the computer and selling drills.

Just then, the doorbell rang and Dudley could be heard running through the house screaming about a "weirdo stranger" at the door. Harry followed Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon out of the home office where they found Dudley in the front foyer pointing at the closed door.

Aunt Petunia pulled back the curtains to glance out the window and then visibly draw back. Harry could see why. He had never seen the likes of this man on Privet Drive...or anywhere for that matter, save for inside a video game.

He was very tall and also exceedingly old, with wrinkles seeping into his face like they were being absorbed by it. He was also wearing clothes like Harry hadn't ever seen except on Halloween-wizard's robes-of all things, in a bright purple and spangled with tiny golden stars. Atop his head, was a pointed hat that matched and perched atop the bridge of his quite crooked nose, a pair of spectacles shaped like half-moons.

Harry heard Uncle Vernon gasp and beckon the stranger inside immediately. The man could have a murderer for all he knew, but Uncle Vernon would never stand for the neighbors seeing someone that crazy looking on their front stoop.

"Good afternoon, Dursleys. It has been a long time indeed," the stranger said as he swept through the doorway with an air of taking ownership of the room. "I trust you have kept well?"

"You're...you're…" Aunt Petunia stammered, suddenly looking a little fearful.

"I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And my next question, I put to you, Harry. Will you take your place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this fall?"

 **A/N: Thanks for all the reviews! Hope you're liking it so far! In the next chapter, we'll get to see Dumbledore take Harry and the Dursleys into Diagon Alley to buy Harry's school things (if he decides to go, of course-which we can all hope he does because then we get to see Uncle Vernon in Diagon Alley) and we'll get to see if Harry's personality (combined with his view of the Dursley values he was raised with) will alter at all now that he knows he's famous/has a lot of money stored away.**


	4. Chapter 4: The Headmaster

**Chapter 4: The Headmaster**

Harry didn't know how they were all going to fit in the back of Uncle Vernon's car what with Dudley taking up two seats in width and Dumbledore being the height of about three sports cars stacked on top of each other, but somehow they managed. It even seemed like the back seat was roomier than usual, but that might have been due to the stranger's supposed ability to do magic.

The drive to Paddington Station, where they would take the underground into London to buy Harry's school things, passed in an unusual silence considering all that had happened. The digital clock on the dashboard read half past three and in the past several hours, he'd experienced more excitement than he had in his whole life so far. It was hard to believe that just six hours before, he'd been on the way to the zoo to celebrate his birthday and in the time that had elapsed since then, a giant snake had escaped, his Aunt Petunia told him he was a wizard and a very tall and very old stranger named Dumbledore arrived to offer him a place at a school for magic, where his parents had studied for seven years. Of course Harry had accepted right away, but it was all still so unbelievable. Half of him still thought it was all an elaborately thought out birthday prank and the other half of him thought it was a dream. A good dream though, and very realistic. He didn't mind keeping it going a little longer, just to see how weird things would get before he woke up. Meanwhile, he passed the equally realistic long drive to the station trying to fathom how strange it would be if there really was a community of wizards out there hiding the fact that they could solve all their problems with magic...and how awesome it would be if he really were famous like dream-Aunt Petunia said.

The late afternoon sun gleamed down on the station entrance when they finally arrived and passerby on the street stared a lot at Dumbledore and his vibrant purple wizard's robes. Though for all he stood out, the Headmaster seemed to know how to navigate his way around regular things-like the parking meter and the ticket machine-quite well, or at least, better than any other old person Harry had ever known.

There was a train to London in five minutes and people stared a lot less when they all finally sat down on the train. Harry, who'd taken the underground into the city countless times with his family, knew this to be because Dumbledore certainly wasn't the freakiest passenger to ride one of these trains. In fact, he looked almost normal compared to the heavily tattooed teenager with the spiky green hair sitting in front of them, the kind of person Uncle Vernon always called a punk and encouraged his family to pull their possessions away from.

"Do you still have your letter, Harry?" Dumbledore asked calmly as the plastic yellow seats thundered beneath them.

Harry nodded and took the thick envelope out of his pocket.

"Good," said Dumbledore. "Enclosed is a list of everything you will need for your first year at Hogwarts."

Harry excitedly unfolded the second sheet of paper behind his acceptance letter, and read:

 **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry**

 **Uniform:**

First year students will require:

Three sets of plain work robes (black)

One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear

One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)

One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)

*please note that all pupils' clothing should carry name tags

 **Course Books:**

All students should have a copy of each of the following:

 _The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk_

 _A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot_

 _Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling_

 _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch_

 _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore_

 _Magical Draughts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger_

 _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander_

 _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble_

 **Other Equipment:**

1 Wand

1 Cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)

1 Set glass or Crystal phials

1 Telescope

1 Set brass scales

*Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad

-PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS-

"Can we buy all this in London?" Harry asked.

"If you know where to go," said Dumbledore.

Harry had been to London many times before with the Dursleys and as they climbed the escalator in the station with Dumbledore and emerged out onto the bustling street, he recognized a number of places he'd visited before.

There was the book shop where they'd gone only the week prior to pick up Harry and Dudley's course books for Smeltings, the record store where Uncle Vernon had once claimed to have picked up a rare copy of the Beatles White Album, the cinema where Harry and Dudley saw all three movies in the _Blue Alien_ trilogy on release day, but nowhere that looked like it could sell him a magic wand.

"This is it," said Dumbledore suddenly stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. "Welcome to the Leaky Cauldron, Harry. It's a famous place."

Harry watched Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's faces crinkle with disgust while Dudley just looked bewildered whether at Dumbledore's use of the word 'famous' or the fact that it was the dirtiest, dingiest looking pub he had ever seen, Harry didn't know. The other shoppers passing by didn't even seem to notice it. Their eyes slid from one side of it to the other-much like his aunt and uncle's did, actually. In fact, Harry was beginning to think only he and Dumbledore could see it.

"Muggles can't see the Leaky Cauldron, Harry," said Dumbledore, as if reading his thoughts.

"Why not?"

"It's part of the protective enchantments under the Statute of Secrecy-so they don't find out about our world. Your relatives will just have to trust and follow along for now."

Uncle Vernon's mustache was bristling and he was beginning to turn the steady fuchsia color of a man who didn't want to listen to, let alone trust, a stranger in wizard's robes, but before he could object, Aunt Petunia steered he and Dudley inside behind Harry and Dumbledore.

The pub was just as greasy and grimy on the inside as it looked on the outside and the revolted expressions on the Dursleys faces told him that they could see it properly now. For a famous place, it wasn't very crowded, Harry supposed because people were still out finishing their shopping and not quite ready for dinner yet. Still, there were a number of strangely dressed people populating the far corner, crowded around a rickety wooden table and drinking tiny glasses of sherry. A few more, equally weirdly dressed in robes like Dumbledore's in colors that varied from alarming scarlet to sunny sky blue, were chatting animatedly with the bartender, an old bald man with one buck tooth.

All of them seemed to know Dumbledore, and they broke away from their conversations to smile and wave when he strode in, Harry and the Dursleys not far behind.

"Albus Dumbledore! What a surprise! What'll it be?" Croaked the old bartender, before adding that anything he ordered would be "on the house, of course!"

"I can't today, Tom. Hogwarts business. Surely you understand," said Dumbledore, laying a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"Good lord...is this-it can't be-" whispered the bartender as he peered down at Harry. The entire pub suddenly went completely silent. "Bless my soul. Harry Potter...what an honor to meet you at last." There were tears in the bartender's eyes as he vigorously shook Harry's hand.

Harry found himself entirely speechless. All eyes in the pub were trained on him and everyone was smiling. The Dursleys looked out of place and a little creeped out, as they slowly backed into the far wall as if bracing themselves for a storm.

And storm there was. Chairs scraped, shoes scuffed quickly against the floor and then Harry found himself facing a line of people who all wanted to shake his hand.

"Doris Crockford, Mr. Potter. I can't believe I'm meeting you at last!"

"So proud, Mr. Potter, I'm just so proud."

"Always wanted to shake your hand-I'm all of a flutter!"

"Delighted, Mr. Potter, just can't tell you. Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle."

Harry remembered what Aunt Petunia had told him just a couple hours before-she'd said he was famous...but never did he imagine…

" _But that's why you're famous…they were calling you the boy who lived when you were brought to us...the boy who cannot die...You, as only a baby, defeated one of the most evil wizards in history…"_

That's why they all knew his name...because a crazy powerful man had tried to murder him and he'd survived...and in doing so, he'd saved all these people he'd never even met? It was a lot to take in, Harry thought, as a pale young man made his way forward, now heading up the line. Harry noticed Doris Crockford behind him, back for more. The young man at the front, however, looked so nervous to meet Harry that the side of his face was twitching.

"Professor Quirrell!" exclaimed Dumbledore eagerly. "Harry, Professor Quirrell will be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts."

"N-not that you n-need it, eh, Mr. P-P-Potter?" Quirrell stammered nervously. Harry wanted to say something consoling to the man, but was a bit put back by the rather putrid smell of garlic that seemed to be coming from the thick mauve turban wrapped around the man's very round head. But he didn't have time to dwell much on this, as the other people in the pub weren't about to let Professor Quirrell keep Harry all to himself for long. It took almost ten minutes to get away from everyone. At last, Dumbledore raised a hand above the customers and the babble grew quieter.

"Alas, we must be getting on. Young Harry has lots to buy for Hogwarts, of course. Come along, Harry."

Harry shook a few more hands (Doris Crockford came back a third time) and then followed Dumbledore out the back door of the pub and out into a small courtyard walled in by high bricks intertwined with yellowing weeds.

The Dursleys soon scurried out into the courtyard after him, Dudley gasping with wide eyes.

"Wow! You're like a movie star!"

Harry nodded and beamed. He thought, once he got past how he'd earned it, he might come to like all this newfound attention.

Dumbledore, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above a large stinking dumpster.

"Three up...two across…" He murmured and tapped the bricks accordingly with the point of a long black stick ringed throughout its stem by tiny silver spheres.

The bricks he touched shook and then began to slide out of place until a small hole appeared in the middle of the wall that grew wider until it formed an archway that someone even as wide as Dudley or tall as Dumbledore would be able to walk under without even brushing the tip of his pointed hat. Harry and the Dursleys hurried after him and found themselves at the head of a cobbled street lined on all sides by shops and merchant carts as far as they could see.

"Welcome," said Dumbledore. "To Diagon Alley."

 **A/N: Hey all! Sorry about the late update, but like I posted in my other story, I literally live at Mardi Gras and things have been insane at work and life, but that's all over now and I hope to be back to regular updates (maybe even everyday if I feel like people want it). In the next chapter, Harry gets his fortune out of Gringotts and breaks away from Dumbledore and the Dursleys to do a bit of shopping on his own...maybe even meeting a new pointy-headed, pure-blooded friend in the process :)**


	5. Chapter 5: The Wand Chooses the Wizard

Chapter Five: The Wand Chooses the Wizard

Golden cauldrons glinted in the high afternoon sun outside the nearest shop. "All Sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver - Self-Stirring- Collapsible," read the sign out front.

"Look! Just like at Halloween!" shouted Dudley, pointing at a plump little witch standing over a large black cauldron and haggling with another witch over the price of dragon liver as they passed.

"Ssh, don't point, diddykins, it's impolite," whispered Aunt Petunia, but Harry hardly paid attention to the exchange. His senses were on overload. He heard owls hooting from inside a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium - Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Smelled all sorts of wonderful things-pumpkin, cinnamon, clove, licorice-emanating from outside a colorful sweet shop Dudley instantly began begging to go inside. He also smelled a number of foul things coming from a drab looking shop called "Jigger's Apothecary," where bat spleens and eels' eyes were apparently half price. Dumbledore, however, did not seem interested in stopping at any of these interesting places. He pressed on, leading Harry and the Dursleys through the crowded, winding street until they reached a shiny white that stood tallest over all the other buildings they'd passed.

"This is Gringotts, the wizard bank," said Dumbledore, sweeping his hand in a gesture of grandeur at the vast building.

Wizards have banks?" barked Uncle Vernon gruffly in his disbelief. It was the first time Harry could remember him speaking since they left Paddington Station.

"Just the one. Gringotts. It is operated entirely by goblins," Dumbledore replied as casually as if he was talking about the weather. Harry actually erupted with sudden laughter.

"Goblins!?" He exclaimed, thinking of the green shriveled-looking villain in the Spider-Man comics and realizing all the more that this had to be a dream.

"Certainly. Never mock or aggravate a goblin, Harry. Gringotts is the safest place in the world for anything you want to keep protected-except, perhaps, Hogwarts," said Dumbledore gravely.

"Sounds like you'd be mad to try and rob it!" Said Dudley with an air of anticipation-like he might actually try to rob it-rather than fear."

"No such thing as goblins, of course. Weirdos in costumes. Don't look em' in the eye, boys," muttered Uncle Vernon and Dumbledore did not entertain his comment with a response , but rather kept walking.

They climbed the white marble steps until (Dudley and Uncle Vernon were quite out of breath) they reached a set of aged bronze double-doors guarded by a tiny little man about a full-head shorter than Harry. He did indeed have the same kind of shriveled features as the Green Goblin and Hobgoblin, but was white instead of green and had very long fingers and feet and a pointed, gnome-ish beard.

Dumbledore bowed to the creature (who was wearing a sort of red and gold security uniform) as they walked inside. Harry did so as well, but the Dursleys just followed after him looking hurried and confused, like they didn't want to look at the goblin for too long.

The five of them now stood in a chamber of sorts, between the front door and another set of doors, these ones silver, like the little area he'd once waited in at the regular bank with Uncle Vernon before the teller approved their entry.

But these doors, he soon noticed, had words engraved on them.

"Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed," he and Aunt Petunia began reading under their breaths.

"For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there."

"Treasure? I wonder what's guarding it," Dudley wondered aloud as the doors opened before them and another pair of goblins led them into an enormous marble hall. Harry's mind was whirring as he too thought of pirates and adventurers, treasures lost at sea, precious jewels worth millions, all perhaps buried beneath these very floors.

But disconcertingly enough, about a hundred more goblins sat on high stools behind long rows of countertops, writing in books larger than their heads, weighing funny-looking coins in brass scales and examining hunks of rock through over-size magnifying glasses.

"Remember when Spider-Man finally unmasks the Hobgoblin? It's really just Roderick Kingsley in a mask…" Dudley whispered to Harry, who grinned in response. Whomever had made all of these masks had done a very good job. Or maybe the goblins were animatronic...

They followed Dumbledore to the counter furthest back.

"Good afternoon," said Dumbledore to a free goblin. "We have come to withdrawal some money from Mr. Harry Potter's vault, sir."

"You have his key, Sir?"

"Certainly," said Dumbledore, and as he started fishing through the many pockets of his purple robes, Harry stood back in awe. When Dumbledore said they were going to the bank, Harry never thought he'd meant to get money for him. After all, he'd never exactly been short of money. He'd never even really needed any. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had always bought he and Dudley anything they'd ever asked for-and on top of that, Uncle Vernon gave them each $20 a week in allowance, just for pocket money.

He glanced up at Aunt Petunia, who seemed to read his thoughts.

"It's your inheritance from your parents, darling. You aren't allowed to access it yourself until you're of age, but we never...I mean, it's in wizard money, we couldn't...and you didn't need…" Aunt Petunia must have sensed a Dudley-style tantrum coming on because she hadn't ever told him his parents left him any money, but Harry didn't care. She was right-he hadn't needed it until now and if he was going to accept any of this as true, real experience and not a dream-she hadn't told him anything about his parents until now. Not really anyway.

"Right here," said Dumbledore, holding up a small gold key. The goblin behind the counter snatched it up and examined it closely.

"That seems to be in order," it said.

"And additionally," said Dumbledore, leaning in closer to the goblin and dropping his voice to a whisper. Harry and Dudley inched closer to the counter to hear better, but caught only a few sentence fragments all the same. "...letter..you-know-what...vault 713…"

Harry and Dudley looked at each other curiously, but did not comment.

"Very well," said the goblin, shifting its beady yellow eyes down to the two boys. "I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"

Griphook, it turned out, was the name of another goblin, who looked the most realistic yet and moved with human-like ease, not all like he was animatronic. Dumbledore, Harry and the three Dursleys followed Griphook through a small door behind the counter that led off the main hall. Harry wondered what was in vault 713 that Dumbledore couldn't discuss openly, when he'd been so frank about everything else. Maybe he just couldn't talk about it in front of the Dursleys since they were-what was the word?-Muggles. Harry smiled to himself and decided to ask Dumbledore about it once safely at Hogwarts and away from prying ears.

Griphook held the door open for them and Harry was surprised at the lack of grandeur behind it. After the marble of the hall, the passageway looked incredibly dull in comparison. It was narrow and dark save for a few flickering medieval-style torches bracketing walls made out of thick gray stone. The floor appeared to be solely dirt and had little railway tracks running across it and leading down a steep hill that Harry could only guess led underground.

Griphook whistled and a small driver-less cart sped up the tracks towards them like a ride cart at an amusement park. The five of them plus Griphook climbed in and zoomed off.

At first, the ride jerked them around a maze of twisting passages that each ended in a turn so sharp Harry was shocked they weren't all thrown off the cart. Griphook wasn't steering and seemed to be there only for guidance as the cart knew its own way.

He and Dumbledore were the only members of their small party who seemed relatively accustomed to traveling in this way. The older wizard was leaning against the side of the cart in a very relaxed manner while his long silver hair and beard billowed up around him. Meanwhile, Harry was struggling to keep his eyes open as blasts of cold air stung them. Finally accepting that there was nothing to see except for deep, unending darkness and the tiny blips of orange light that were the flickering torches as they rushed past, Harry squeezed his eyes shut.

He opened them only when he felt the cart start to slow down and Dudley gathered enough breath to shout that the ride reminded him of Comet at Tomorrowland in Disney World. Aunt Petunia looked very white and Uncle Vernon, very green. When the cart at last stopped beside a small landing and door set into the stone wall, his aunt and uncle got out and had to lean against the wall to stop their knees from shaking.

Griphook used the tiny golden key Dumbledore had given him to unlock the door. Harry coughed as a burst of green smoke streamed out and into his face, but as it cleared, Harry heard Dudley gasp.

Inside, was more money than Harry had ever laid eyes on. Mounds of gold. Columns of silver. Heaps of bronze. And it was all his.

"Harry...you're like...a millionaire…" Said Dudley, who'd fixed his eyes greedily on the money and Harry couldn't help smirking slightly. He'd probably never have to work a day in his life if he didn't want to.

Dumbledore helped Harry pile some of the wizard money into a bag as Harry marveled at the fact that all this time he'd complained about being ordinary, his parents had not only been famous wizards, but they'd been filthy rich!

"The gold ones are called Galleons," Dumbledore explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Bronze Knuts to a Sickle, it should be easy enough to remember. This should be enough to last you a couple of terms," he said, drawing the bag shut and passing it to Harry, who was a little disappointed he wasn't allowed to take as much as he wanted. He wondered whether Dumbledore'd given him enough to buy that solid gold cauldron...

Meanwhile, Dudley was trying to count coins and estimate how much it was all worth in Muggle money. A conversation about this carried them back into the narrow passageway and into the rickety, hurtling cart to their second stop, which they'd almost forgotten about. Vault 713 was even deeper underground than Harry's vault. It was, if possible, even colder and darker the further underground they went and Harry craned his neck to try to get a better look at the vaults, but they were passing by too quickly.

Vault 713 had no keyhole.

"Stand back," said Griphook. He extended one of his long, bony fingers and pressed it against the door, which disappeared into the air like dust.

"If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there," said the goblin.

"How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Dudley asked.

"About once every ten years," said Griphook with a wide, creepy smile as Dudley shrank back against his parents. Harry couldn't imagine what could be inside this high security vault, deep underground. He thought once more of The Goonies and ancient, heavily guarded pirate treasure and wondered if they'd have to battle their way through traps and skeleton pirates to get to whatever Dumbledore needed, but his excitement died away as soon as he peered inside. The vault at first glance, appeared to be empty. Then, he noticed a lumpy little package wrapped up in what appeared to be lunch sack paper, lying isolated in the corner.

Harry looked over at Dudley, whose face was also all pinched up in confusion. Harry took a step forward to get a closer look, but Aunt Petunia drew him back and murmured that it might not be safe.

Harry wondered what could possibly be in that tiny little package that demanded such security? Maybe a really rare gem, like the Hope diamond?

He had little time to dwell on this, because one wild cart ride later and the five of them stood once more in the setting sun outside Gringotts. The pink light cast a curious glow over the still-bustling shops of Diagon Alley and Dumbledore checked a watch-like device on his wrist, before frowning slightly and rounding on Harry.

"Shops will be closing up soon, so it's probably best if you get started on your shopping, Harry. We should probably start with your uniform," said Dumbledore, gesturing towards the shop directly across the street, Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Harry, would you mind if I slipped off to take your relatives for a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? This can all be very overwhelming, for Muggles, you know." Noticing his aunt and uncle did still look a little off-color, Harry agreed and strode off towards Madam Malkin's alone, feeling the sack of money jingling importantly in his pocket.

Madam Malkin was a short, plump little witch wearing a set of lilac-colored robes and bustling about the shop looking busy when Harry entered, though she smiled all the same when she heard him enter.

"Hogwarts, dear?" she said, when Harry started to speak. "Got the lot here - another young man being fitted up just now, in fact. "

In the back of the shop, a boy about Harry's age with blond hair and a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a dark-haired witch pinned up a set of long black robes, not unlike Harry's school supply list had specified.

Madam Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him, slipped a similar long robe over his head, and began to pin it to the right length.

Harry was immediately curious. He hadn't met another wizard his own age yet.

"Hello," he said. "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," said the boy. "My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," he continued, sounding bored with the whole thing. "Then I'm going to drag them off to took at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

The boy still sounded bored, but Harry's mind was working at top speed again. Racing brooms?! How much about this new world didn't he know?

"Have you got your own broom?" the boy went on.

"No," said Harry, regretfully and aching to go and look at them for himself.

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"No," Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be and thinking it sounded like a weird foreign food.

"I do - Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?" The boy pressed on. Harry didn't know what houses meant, either and was beginning to feel stupider than ever even though he'd always made alright grades in school.

"No," said Harry.

"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know

I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been - imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

"Mmm," said Harry, wishing he could say something a bit more interesting and then suddenly realizing this boy must not know who he was yet-he wasn't behaving like any of the people in the pub. "What's your name?" He prompted, knowing maybe he could talk about Voldemort next and prove that he wasn't entirely clueless.

"Oh, right. I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy." The boy stuck out his hand formally and Harry shook it.

"I'm Harry. Harry Potter."

As he'd predicted, Draco Malfoy's eyebrows disappeared momentarily into his slick blonde hair.

"You're...but then…" He paused, and seemed to be studying Harry's forehead. Catching on, Harry pushed up a tuft of hair and exposed his lightning bolt scar to view. He suddenly looked a lot less bored than he had only moments before.

"Really? But then you were brought up by Muggles, weren't you?"

"I'm a pure blood if that's what you mean," Harry said a little guiltily. It wasn't really a lie. Both his parents had magical blood, even if his mother was the first in her family to do so. "I was brought up by Muggles, though...distant relatives," Harry added quickly thinking of Voldemort and how important blood status had to be if people could be killed over it.

"That's alright, couldn't be helped I suppose. It's all blood that matters, anyway. Not who you grew up with...I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're

just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine."

"Yeah," Harry agreed, feeling guilty all the more. Technically Aunt Petunia had told him he was a wizard before giving him the letter...still, he couldn't help feeling like he was lying and hoped Draco wouldn't catch him in it.

"I knew all about Hogwarts...and that I could do magic, and Voldemort of course-but there's still a good bit that I don't know," he went on, throwing in his name-drop to prove wasn't clueless. Draco Malfoy, however, looked more interested than ever, his gray eyes widening in what Harry couldn't distinguish between amazement and fear.

"You're very brave to say his name. I would have thought you, of all people, considering what happened to your parents…"

"It's just a name," Harry heard himself reply in a smug voice he didn't quite recognize as his own. "I mean, why should I fear him when I'm the only one who's ever given him something to be afraid of."

He must have said just the right thing, because Draco Malfoy nodded approvingly. "Very true, very true. And I must ask, though I'm sure you've heard it from everyone all your life, how was it you were able to defeat him? Weren't you just a baby?"

Harry shrugged and grinned sheepishly. But before he could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, my dears," and they stepped off their footstools to go and pay. Harry figured Draco must have been rich as well given the way he talked about begging his parents for a racing broom and the ease with which he pulled out a stack of coins similar to the ones Harry was carrying in his pocket, to pay for his school uniform.

While Madam Malkin rung up Draco, Harry struggled to do the math in his head to figure out exactly how many golden galleons, silver sickles and bronze Knuts he would need to pay for his uniform so that no one would know it was his first time buying anything with wizard money by the time it was his turn at the register.

After leaving Madam Malkin's and still seeing no sign of Dumbledore and the Dursleys, Harry and Draco went off together to buy their parchment and quills for writing. Harry thought it really interesting that wizards still wrote with quills and ink like it was the Middle Ages when using pens would be much more efficient, but he said none of this to Draco, who seemed to accept their strange writing materials as honored tradition. Instead, Harry pretended to be completely absorbed in examining a bottle of ink that was supposed to change colors as you wrote. Draco purchased several rolls of yellowed-looking parchment and Harry snatched up the same, assuming it was what he was supposed to buy. However, when Draco selected a box of handsome eagle feather quills, Harry chose falcon instead.

When they had left the shop, he said, "Draco, what's Quidditch?"

"Really? You don't know Quidditch? But your father was legend in his time, mind you he played for Gryffindor...but still…"

Harry felt his face tinge pink as he thought of the pile of FIFA jerseys sitting home that he'd gotten for his birthday...

"I was brought up on soccer," he said, not even having to pretend to be embarrassed about it.

"Right. Well you can't go to Hogwarts not knowing about Quidditch. People who don't know who you are will think you're daft...or worse, muggle-born." Draco sneered and Harry shuddered. He was starting to think being thought muggle-born might be the worst reputation one could have in the wizarding world and Harry was determined not to give anyone that idea.

"That's why I need to know everything before I get there," he confessed. "I wouldn't want anyone to think that."

"Quidditch is our sport. Wizard sport. I don't know much about Muggle sports, but it's probably enough like soccer," he said, pausing to sneer again at the word "soccer" like it was something repulsive. Harry vowed internally not to bring any of his jerseys or posters to Hogwarts with him. "Everyone whose anyone follows it," Draco went on. "It's played on broomsticks and there's four balls-it's hard to explain the rules, I'll just show you how to play when we get to school."

"And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"

"School houses. There's four. Gryffindor-which your parents were both in, I think-which sorry to say, I think would be the worst option. They're enemies with Slytherin, the house my whole family's been in...but even Gryffindor wouldn't be as bad as Hufflepuff. That's the house they put you in when you're too stupid to go anywhere else."

Harry felt his face scrunch up. He really hoped he wasn't put in Hufflepuff.

"I suppose Ravenclaw would be alright...that's the smart house, everyone says."

"Maybe we'll both be in Slytherin," said Harry. Again, he must have said the right thing because Draco nodded approvingly.

"It would be interesting if you were in Slytherin...considering You-Know-Who himself was in it,"he said.

"Voldemort was at Hogwarts?"

"Yeah. Long before we were born, of course."

They bought their school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts, which was full of high wooden shelves stacked to the ceiling with thousands of books. Again, Harry tried not to embarrass himself by showing too much interest even though he'd never seen books like these in his life. Some of the books were as large and thick as computers, while others were smaller than stamps and bound in thin silk. Even Dudley, who hated reading, wouldn't be able to put down some of these.

Draco strolled away from the cash register to find Harry chuckling at a leather-bound red book called Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying and Much, Much More) by Vindictus Viridian.

"Hmm, maybe you do belong in Slytherin after all," he said and Harry took it as a compliment.

Harry ended up not being able to buy the solid gold cauldron, not because he couldn't afford it, but because the school supply list required pewter.

"I know, lame of them right?" said Draco. "I think they make it pewter so everyone has the same thing and you know, the other sort, don't get jealous of wizards like us." Harry did not reply, however, because he was busy checking out a collapsible brass telescope.

Then they visited the Apothecary that Harry remembered passing by earlier on the way to Gringotts. It smelled just as horrible inside as it did out front-a mixture of bad eggs and curdled milk, but Harry thought it was interesting all the same. He bought a basic potion-making kit that included such ingredients as unicorn horns, beetle eyes and powdered root of asphodel.

Once outside, Draco gestured sharply to two people heading up the path towards them.

"My parents, finally," he muttered to Harry. "About time, too...the broomstick store is about to close…" he went on, but Harry was only half-listening as he admired the way Draco's parents seemed to strut down the street dressed in the sort of clothes Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon only reserved for weddings and funerals.

Draco's mother, in particular, was very beautiful. She was young, maybe thirty, with long white-blonde hair that cascaded to her hips and swished when she walked. Her skin was shiny and free of wrinkles, and she had the sort of body Aunt Petunia would have scoffed at and muttered "probably plastic surgery." She and Draco's father were both wearing long black coats with silver fastenings, though hers appeared to be set over a silky green dress that moved with her hair.

"Draco...I was wondering where you'd gotten off to," the woman same in the same bored, drawing voice as her son. Harry noticed that Mr. Malfoy was carrying a cane, not for walking aid, but for aesthetic purposes-it was long and black, with a silver serpent for a handle.

"Mother, father, this is Harry Potter," Draco introduced and his father studied Harry intently like Draco had when they first met. His mother, on the other hand, changed her expression from coolness to warmth.

"Pleasure," she said, silkily, but Harry couldn't exactly tell if she meant it or not.

Suddenly, Harry saw the Dursleys and Dumbledore hurrying across the street towards him, so he bade the Malfoys a quick goodbye and told Draco he'd see him at Hogwarts. He wasn't necessarily embarrassed by his relatives, but he didn't really want Malfoys well-dressed, well-mannered parents gaining their impression of Harry from any Muggles, let alone Uncle Vernon.

"There you are!" shrieked Aunt Petunia as he approached them. She was a bit hysterical in her rebuke, telling Harry how worried she was and how dangerous it was for him to run off on his own like that, especially in a strange place. She softened, however, when Harry told her he'd made friends with a new schoolmate and not only had he not been alone at all, but he'd finished all his shopping...save for getting his wand.

She smiled then and said they were just about to buy Harry another birthday present since Dumbledore had helped them to exchange some of their currency.

"I'd really like a racing broom," he said eagerly, thinking of Draco Malfoy and how it would feel to show up at school with a faster broom despite not knowing anything about Quidditch.

"Oh, but first years aren't allowed their own brooms, darling. It says on your school list, remember," she said and Dumbledore nodded.

"But...I really really want one," he whined in a voice so reminiscent of Dudley he knew she might give in if only to get him to stop. But she did not give in, maybe because Dumbledore was there, and instead suggested that they buy his owl, with Dumbledore putting in how useful they were and how all the students wanted them, and Aunt Petunia recalling how useful it was for Harry's mother to have an owl to send letters home when she was in school.

Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which was dim inside and full of all sorts of different types of owls with feathers ranging from the whitest white to the blackest black and everything in between and with all different colored jewel-bright eyes. Harry now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing.

Now, the only thing he had left to buy was his magic wand...the thing Harry had been most looking forward to. The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.

It looked a little cramped inside, so Dumbledore and the Dursleys waited outside while Harry went in on his own. A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as he stepped inside. Harry looked around. It was indeed a rather small shop, walled in book shelves just like Flourish and Blotts, but instead of books, the shelves held thousands of narrow black boxes piled nearly from floor to ceiling.

"Good afternoon," said a soft voice. Harry jumped and turned sharply to his right to see an old man standing there. He had thin, wispy hair and wide, pale eyes that seemed to glitter like polished saucers through the dark shop.

"Um...hi, I'm Harry Potter," Harry said.

"Ah yes," said the man, his eyebrows raising like everyone's did in this world when they met Harry.

"Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon, Mr. Potter." He studied Harry curiously. Not at his scar though, but straight into his eyes. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work."

Mr. Ollivander moved closer to Harry. Harry wished he would blink. Those silvery eyes were a bit creepy.

"Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it - it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course."

Mr. Ollivander had come so close that he and Harry were almost nose to nose. Harry could see himself reflected in his eyes.

"And that's where..."

Harry pushed his hair aside as he'd quickly grown accustomed to and Mr. Ollivander touched the lightning scar with a long, white finger not unlike those of the goblins at Gringotts.

"I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it," he said softly. "Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands... well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do..." He then shook his head abruptly, perhaps to rid himself of the thought.

"Well, now - Mr. Potter. Let me see." He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?"

"Er - well, I'm right-handed," said Harry.

He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. As he measured, he said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand."

The tape measure fell to the floor of its own accord and Mr. Ollivander shuffled about picking up boxes. Harry wondered what kind of wands Dumbledore and the Malfoys had.

. "Right then, Mr. Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. just take it and give it a wave."

Harry took the wand from Mr. Ollivander and, not really knowing what to do, waved it around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander grabbed it back from him and replaced it with another wand.

"Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try -"

Harry tried - but he had hardly raised the wand when it, too, was snatched back by Mr. Ollivander.

"No, no -Tricky customer, eh? I wonder, now - - yes, why not - unusual combination - holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple."

Harry took the wand, a dark wood thing that seemed to shine in the sunset. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. A sense of power flooding through him that he hadn't experienced with any of the other wands...like he could do anything, be anyone. It was all here...in his hands. He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework.

"Oh, bravo!" Exclaimed Mr. Ollivander. "Indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well... how curious... how very curious... "

He put Harry's wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, "Curious... curious..

"Sorry," said Harry, "but what's curious?"

"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter," he said in a voice suddenly frosty. "Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather - just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother why, its brother gave you that scar...Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter... After all, He- Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things - terrible, yes, but great."

It was dark outside as Harry, Dumbledore and the Dursleys headed into the station to board the Underground back to Paddington. Uncle Vernon seemed tired and frustrated, probably nervous about the way people were gawking at them due to Harry's funny-shaped packages and new pet owl, still asleep in her cage. Aunt Petunia just kept gushing about how wonderful it was that Harry was going away to such an elite school (not wanting or being allowed to say the name or nature of it in public) and talking about all the family time they needed to have before he went so far away. Dudley, all the while, sat glowering like Christmas had been canceled because of how little attention he'd gotten all day. Harry thought maybe he should say something consoling, but why should he? After all, it was he, Harry, who'd gotten the letter. He, Harry, who had the magic powers, who'd been chosen by the rare wand, who was supposed to do great things...Dudley didn't even want a destiny like that, anyway. He'd always been the one to just be content with going into the drill-selling business after Uncle Vernon. And he was going off to Smeltings, a good school in its own right.

No, Harry decided, it was no use feeling guilty over anything. Still, he was quiet trying to process all that had happened right up until he noticed his feet carrying him off the train and up the steps into the parking lot outside the station, where Uncle Vernon set off to find where he'd parked the car.

Dumbledore did not follow after the Dursleys, but instead, turned towards Harry and handed him an envelope.

"This is your ticket for the Hogwarts Express, Harry. It leaves at exactly 11:00 on the 1st or September from King's Cross station. If you encounter any trouble, send me a letter with your owl. She'll know where to go."

Harry turned around to follow after his family, flipping the envelope over in his hands as he did so. He turned back for one more glance at Dumbledore, but he blinked and Dumbledore had already gone.

Even though everything he'd seen and everything Dumbledore told him had seemed ridiculous, it was just all too real to be denied...so Harry couldn't help trusting him...that he, Harry, was a wizard descended from greats, about to embark on the greatest adventure of his life.


	6. Chapter 6: The Hogwarts Express

**Chapter 6: The Hogwarts Express**

Harry's last month with the Dursleys was full of fun. Aunt Petunia continued to insist that they spend as much time together as a family as they could before Harry and Dudley went off to their respective new schools. Each day, she woke them all at the crack of dawn to go off on some new adventure while Uncle Vernon was at work-they went to amusement parks, hamburger restaurants, video game arcades, the aquarium, the movies...Though it did become a bit exhausting after awhile, especially because Harry couldn't wait to get to Hogwarts.

His school books were surprisingly interesting. He stayed up reading late into the night with a flashlight under his blanket despite the early morning wake up times. He decided to call his new owl Hedwig after finding the name in A History of Magic, and when he found himself simply too excited to sleep, he watched her swoop in and out of his open window when she went off to hunt.

He knew that his aunt, uncle and cousin were sad that he was going away to a boarding school so far away, but Harry couldn't help his anticipation. Meeting Draco Malfoy in Diagon Alley had led him to thinking-he was going to be with hundreds of other kids his age who could all do magic and all thought he was a celebrity. And he was going to learn how do all sorts of powerful spells! It was these happy prospects that he thought of first thing after waking up and last before he went to bed, when he ticked off another day on the piece of paper he had pinned to the wall, counting down to September the first.

On the last night of August, they had a huge dinner together with all of Harry's favorite foods. Only after they'd dug into the ice cream cake for dessert did Harry think it time they discuss how he was getting to King's Cross Station the next day.

"Uncle Vernon?"

"Hmm?"

"I need to be at King's Cross tomorrow to go to Hogwarts. Am I taking the underground or are you guys giving me a lift?"

"Certainly, my dear. We want to see you off before you go. And we've got to go up to London anyway to get Dudley a larger pair of knickerbockers for his Smeltings uniform," Aunt Petunia cut in seemingly to Harry and Uncle Vernon at the same time.

Uncle Vernon grunted around a mouthful of cake to show his agreement.

"Where is this school again?" He asked, once he'd swallowed his food.

"I don't know," said Harry, realizing this for the first time. He pulled the ticket Dumbledore had given him out of his pocket."Scotland, I think. But this just says I take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o'clock," he read.

"Platform what?"

"Nine and three-quarters."

"Can't be," said Uncle Vernon. "There is no platform nine and three-quarters."

"It's on my ticket," said Harry and then both he and his Uncle rounded on Aunt Petunia for an explanation.

"It's true. That was always on her tickets as well...trouble is, I don't know how to find the platform...she always...I mean, there was really no need for me to go along, I always stayed home…"she confessed and Harry hoped the platform wasn't as hard to find as she was making it sound. They would just have to get up extra early to leave time.

Harry woke at five o'clock the next morning and was too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. He selected his clothing very carefully, thinking it'd be weird to show up at the train station in wizard's robes, but wanting to look smart all the same. He chose a pair of his newest jeans and a long sleeved black polo shirt, thinking of the Malfoy family and wanting to look pure blood like them.

Two hours later, Harry's huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the Dursleys' car, Harry and Dudley were sitting side by side in the back seat and they set off for King's across. The drive into London was longer than Harry remembered and by the time they arrived, it was already 10:30-only a half hour before the train was scheduled to leave.

Uncle Vernon set Harry's trunk on a cart and wheeled it into the station for him while Aunt Petunia took he and Dudley each by the hand to cross the street. Harry shook her off straightaway...he didn't want any of his new classmates to catch sight of him holding his aunt's hand like a baby.

His embarrassment did not abate when they got inside the station. They stood facing the platforms glancing around and making it obvious they didn't know what they were doing.

"Platform nine-platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, shouldn't it?" asked Uncle Vernon gruffly. Aunt Petunia shrugged.

He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all.

"Maybe we should ask someone," said Dudley, but Harry and Uncle Vernon shook their heads at the same time. Uncle Vernon was probably worried about attracting funny looks or sounding stupid to the guards, but Harry was just trying to spare himself from further humiliation before he even got on the train...if he got on the train.

Harry was now trying hard not to panic. According to the large clock over the arrivals board, he had ten minutes left to get on the train to Hogwarts and he had no idea how to do it. Dumbledore must have forgotten to tell him something he had to do…

At that moment, however, he spotted the Malfoys. They looked just as gallant and regal as they did that day in Diagon Alley. Draco was leading the way, in a very expensive looking button-up shirt and slacks, pushing a cart with a trunk like Harry's on it. His parents walked hand in hand behind him in silk coats. His father carried his silver topped walking stick in his free hand.

Harry was glad he'd chosen not to wear his robes, but he still didn't want to approach them and ask how to get on the platform, especially with the Dursleys beside him. Aunt Petunia would fawn and dote and embarrass him, while Uncle Vernon and Dudley would behave as Muggle-ish as possible and Harry would never live it down. So, it was with little hesitancy that he lingered behind his relatives with one hand on his trolley cart, watching the Malfoys to see what they did.

Draco went first. To Harry's surprise, he walked confidently towards the solid barrier between platforms nine and ten, pushing his cart in front of him and then-he disappeared. Harry rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. Had a door opened up and he'd missed it? Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy strutted forward next and-had he blinked without realizing it? They were gone!

Harry turned around to ask his aunt if she'd caught what happened, but to his absolute horror, he saw her walking towards he, Uncle Vernon and Dudley with a plump red-headed woman at her side and several red-headed children in tow, all of them pushing carts like Harry's. He felt his cheeks flush red. Why did she have to ask someone?! Uncle Vernon, who'd turned his trademark shade of fuschia, was obviously thinking the same thing.

"Of course he's nervous...bound to be...Ron's first time to Hogwarts as well," the plump redheads woman was saying to Aunt Petunia.

"Well, we're Muggles, we don't even know how to-"

"Get onto the platform? Not to worry, Fred, you next, why not show them how it's done."

Harry was beginning to wonder if it might not be easier to get to Hogwarts if he'd just sunk straight into the ground. Meanwhile, two-red headed twin boys wheeled their carts around either side of their mother and faced the barrier.

"I'm not Fred, I'm George," said one of the boys. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you tell I'm George?"

"Sorry, George, dear."

"Only joking, I am Fred," said the boy, and off he went. Harry strained to eyes to watch this time, but a second later, the boy was gone just like the Malfoys.

Now his brother was walking briskly toward the barrier- and then, quite suddenly, he wasn't anywhere.

The last son wheeled his cart around his mother and faced the barrier. He was tall, thin, and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.

"How did he-how are they-" Aunt Petunia stammered and the plump woman nodded kindly.

"Nothing to worry about," she said and then she rounded on Harry. "All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."

"Er - okay," said Harry. He pushed his trolley around and started to walk towards the barrier. He tried to look more confident, with his head and shoulders back like Draco Malfoy or brave enough to take it at a run like Fred and George -but really what was there to be confident about when he was about to smash straight into the barrier? He broke into a heavy run out of nerves, not daring like the twins. The barrier drew nearer. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the crash, but it didn't come. Surely he would have hit it by now, right? He wasn't that far away to begin with.

With some reluctance, Harry opened his eyes. A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven O'clock. Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it, He had done it.

Behind him, the tall redheaded boy came through the barrier. Then his mother and sister. Then the Dursleys. Harry laughed to himself at how nervous they looked-was that what he looked like coming through? Aunt Petunia's face was all scrunched up like she was about to go under water and Dudley was actually covering his face with his hands until he too risked a glance between his fingers at the wonder before him.

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs.

"Well, this is it then, isn't it?" Harry mumbled as the Dursleys met him on the platform. It felt strange to be going away like this, so suddenly after never spending more than a night or two away from home in his life. Uncle Vernon nodded and started to say something, but was drowned out by the sound of an owl hooting nearby and a group of teenagers shrieking and yelling at something a boy with dreadlocks had in a box in his arms.

"Give us a look, Lee, go on!" Someone shouted. The boy lifted the lid off the box and something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.

"As I was saying, you'll behave yourself of course. And write. And you can visit anytime you want, I expect...and if you get homesick, we can write every week if you'd like-"

"Thanks, Uncle Vernon, I'm sure I'll be fine," Harry said quickly. As touching as it was to think of his relatives sending him letters every week, he doubted anyone else at school would get mail from home that regularly. He looked at Aunt Petunia, but quickly averted his eyes. She was fumbling around getting a handkerchief out of her purse and he never knew what to say when people got emotional.

Fortunately, he was spared by the plump woman, who'd just appeared behind them again.

"Everybody make it through alright?" She asked. Aunt Petunia nodded and began dabbing at the corners of her eyes with the handkerchief. The woman laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"First one to go off is always hard. I've got two older sons who've already graduated and I remember when Bill-my oldest-first left for Hogwarts. Oh, I cried. But he was fine and Charlie was fine and Percy of course, and Fred and George…" She trailed off.

Harry finally spotted an empty compartment near the end of the train. He put Hedwig inside first and then Uncle Vernon and Dudley each grabbed one end of his heavy trunk and hoisted into a corner of the compartment.

"Thanks," said Harry and then he faced his relatives awkwardly for the last time until Christmas. He gave Uncle Vernon and Dudley each a gruff, one-armed hug and let Aunt Petunia give him a few wet, teary kisses on the cheek before he climbed onto the train.

"Oh..how quickly you've g-grown-up," she stammered through her tears, sounding just like Professor Quirrell. "Your parents would be so p-p-proud."

"They'll still be. I'll make them proud," he said with conviction. It was true. His parents had been famous and renowned even while they were at Hogwarts-even Draco Malfoy had heard of them-and Harry, well he'd already defeated the most evil wizard in living memory, so how hard would magical school be, really?

The train began to move. Harry saw the Dursleys and the redheaded boys' mother waving and the little redheaded sister, running to keep up with the train until it gathered too much speed, then she too fell back and waved.

Harry watched the girl and her mother and his aunt, uncle and cousin disappear as the train rounded the corner. Houses flashed past the window. Harry felt a great leap of excitement. He didn't know what he was going to but he was ready for anything. He could feel it.

Then, the door of the compartment slid open and the youngest redheaded boy came in.

"Anyone sitting there?" he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Harry. "Everywhere else is full."

Harry shook his head and the boy sat down. "I'm Ron, by the way. Ron Weasley," he said

"I'm Harry," Harry replied. "Harry Potter." Very predictably, the boy's eyebrows flew upwards almost immediately, nearly disappearing into his hair.

"Bloody hell! And have you really got-you know…" He pointed at Harry's forehead.

Harry pulled back his bangs to show his scar. Ron goggled at it for a moment and then looked away. "So that's where You-Know-Who-"

"Yes," said Harry.

"And do you remember anything?" Asked Ron.

"Well, I remember a huge flash of green light. And a scream." Harry realized he'd added the scream part since he'd last told this story, but didn't think it sounded entirely implausible. After all, that was the moment when Voldemort was defeated...so he'd probably screamed for sure.

"Wicked," said Ron. He sat and stared at Harry for a few moments, then, as though he had suddenly realized what he was doing, he looked quickly out of the window again.

"Are all your family wizards?" asked Harry, wondering if Ron was pure blood or not. And if his family knew the Malfoys.

"Er - Yes, I think so," said Ron. "I think Mom's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him."

"So you must know loads of magic already," said Harry eagerly. The Weasleys were clearly one of those old wizarding families that Draco had talked about. Ron nodded.

"A bit, but what about you? Your family are Muggles, right?"

Harry's heart sank. Was this going to be his reputation at Hogwarts? The famous Muggle boy who just so happens to maybe be a wizard? We're people going to treat like a charity case who'd gotten in on a stroke of luck and pity after what happened when he was a baby?

"Oh no, they're distant relatives...raised me because Aunt Petunia was close with my Mum growing up...almost like they were sisters," Harry said quickly.

"So that's why you call her Aunt?"

"Yeah," Harry replied. "My parents were both pure blood though. Both in Gryffindor. My Dad was on the Quidditch team...I'm an only child, though...so it's just me now. You're lucky to have all those wizard brothers."

"Yeah, try having five," said Ron. For some reason, he was looking gloomy. "I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left - Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy's a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others,

but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."

Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat gray rat, which was asleep.

"His name's Scabbers and he's useless, he hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn't aff - I mean, I got Scabbers instead." Ron's ears went pink and he went back to staring out the window.

Harry didn't really know what to say. He didn't know how much owls cost, but Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had been able to afford one easily enough...but perhaps it was because they only had he and and Dudley while the Weasleys had seven children.

"Well, I guess it's pros and cons, right? You've got a big family, which is cool, but I guess big families come with hand-me-downs….Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon couldn't really do hand-me-downs with Dudley and me, since we're the same age and he's, well-" Harry spread out his arms around his stomach gesturing to how large Dudley was. Ron burst out laughing.

"I mean, it's true, right? And since I never had anybody older than me to go to Hogwarts first, I bet there's loads I don't know-" Harry admitted, confessing to a very real fear he had ever since Draco Malfoy had started talking on about Quidditch and Houses that day in Diagon Alley, proving to Harry he didn't really know anything about being a wizard yet. He could only hope though, that it wasn't too obvious.

"I'm afraid," Harry said, lowering his voice. "I'm afraid I'm going to be the worst in the class."

"Nah, you won't be. There's loads of people who come from Muggle families-I mean, actual Muggle families, and they learn quick enough. Some kids don't even know they can do magic until they get the letter on their eleventh birthdays! Imagine that!"

Harry frowned slightly, but shook his head in disbelief anyway.

While they had been talking, the train had carried them out of London. Now they were speeding past farms and fields full of crops shining golden in the sunlight.

Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, "Anything off the cart, dears?"

Harry, who hadn't had any breakfast, leapt to his feet, but Ron's ears

went pink again and he muttered that he'd brought sandwiches. Harry went out into the corridor.

One of he and Dudley's favorite things to do after school was go around the block from their neighborhood to the convenience store, where they'd beg Aunt Petunia to buy them as many Mars Bars and M&Ms as they could carry- but the woman didn't have Mars Bars. What she did have were Bettie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things Harry had never seen in his life. Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything and paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.

Ron was wide-eyed as Harry brought it all back in to the compartment and tipped it onto an empty seat.

"Hungry, are you?"

"Starving," said Harry, taking a large bite out of the sweet that was called a pumpkin pasty. It was a flat, sort of a cake and sort of a cookie and orange in color. When he bit into it, he tasted pumpkin of course, and cinnamon and clove-like in the spice cakes Aunt Petunia always baked at holiday time.

Ron, meanwhile, had taken out a lumpy and heavily tin foiled package and unwrapped it. There were four sandwiches inside. He pulled one of them apart and said,

"She always forgets I don't like corned beef."

"Swap you for one of these," said Harry, holding up a pasty. "Go on -"

"You don't want this, it's all dry," said Ron. "She hasn't got much time," he added quickly, "you know, with five of us at home."

"Go on, have a pasty," said Harry, who was beginning to feel rather uncomfortable. He wasn't used to having -more- than someone else, except maybe Dudley, but if Harry ever got something that he didn't, he'd throw a huge tantrum until he got one, too. A lot of the kids they'd gone to school with were like that-Uncle Vernon called it 'the way of private school.' Ron didn't seem like he was going to throw a tantrum, but Harry tossed a few candies his way anyway and they spent much of the rest of the train ride eating their way through them while the sandwiches lay forgotten.

"What are these?" Harry asked Ron, holding up a pack of something called a Chocolate Frog."They're not really frogs, are they?" He was starting to feel that

nothing would surprise him.

"No, it's just a spell," said Ron. "But see what the card is. I'm missing Agrippa."

"What?"

"Oh, of course, you wouldn't know - Chocolate Frogs have cards, inside them, you know, to collect - famous witches and wizards. I've got about five hundred, but I haven't got Agrippa or Ptolemy."

Harry excitedly unwrapped his Chocolate Frog and picked up the card. He was surprised to see a very familiar face with an equally familiar crooked nose, silver beard and half-moon glasses.

"I've got Dumbledore!" said Harry.

"Oh-I've got about six of him," said Ron. "Can I have a frog? I might get Agrippa-thanks-"

Harry turned over his card and read:

 _ALBUS DUMBLEDORE_

 _CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS_

 _Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling._

Harry turned the card back over and saw, to his astonishment, that Dumbledore's face had disappeared.

"He's gone!"

"Well, you can't expect him to hang around all day," said Ron. "He'll be back. No, I've got Morgana again... do you want it? You can start collecting." Harry took the card, but was more confused as to why no one had thought to mention to him before that in this world-pictures MOVED. What else didn't he know?

Then, as suddenly as he'd left, Dumbledore sidled back into the picture on his card and gave him a small smile. Ron was more interested in eating the frogs than looking at the Famous Witches and Wizards cards, but Harry couldn't keep his eyes off them. Soon he had not only Dumbledore and Morgana, but Hengist of Woodcroft, Alberic Grunnion, Circe, Paracelsus, and Merlin. He finally tore his eyes away from the druidess Cliodna, who was scratching her nose, to open a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. They looked a lot like Jelly Beans, but in loads more different colors.

"You want to be careful with those," Ron warned Harry. "When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor - you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a booger- flavored one once." Harry's felt his face wrinkle in disgust. Why would anyone make a candy like that?

Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a corner.

"Bleaaargh - see? Sprouts."

They finished the last of the Chocolate Frogs and began eating their way through the Every Flavor Beans. It was all going well for Harry, who got Bubble Gum, Toasted Marshmallow, Coffee, Strawberry and Grass (which actually turned out to taste all right) but then he bit into the edge of a funny yellow one that Ron thought might be Buttered Popcorn, but then it turned out to be Vomit-flavored.

They had just laid the beans aside and snatched up the Licorice Wands when there was a knock on the door of their compartment and a chubby round-faced boy came in,, his eyes puffy and red like he'd been crying.

"Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad at all?"

When they shook their heads, he began to sob. "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"

"He'll turn up," said Harry.

"Yes," said the boy miserably. "Well, if you see him..." And he left.

"Do a lot of people bring toads? Sounds like more trouble than it's worth," Harry said as soon as the boy was out of earshot. Ron laughed.

"Hah. No. They're pathetic. If I'd brought a toad I'd lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can't talk."

Harry had almost forgotten the rat was there until he looked down at, lying still on Ron's lap. He found himself really hoping, for Ron's sake, that it hadn't died.

"I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. I'll show you, look…"

He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking wand. It was chipped in places and something white was glinting at the end. Harry was about to ask him if he'd gotten it from Mr. Ollivander like Harry had gotten his, but then he remembered Ron saying the wand was once his brothers. Did that mean his brother got a new wand? Was that common? The way Mr. Ollivander had talked it sounded like a wand was bound to a wizard for life...but perhaps he was only trying to be dramatic.

"Unicorn hair's nearly poking out. Anyway…" Ron had just raised his wand when the compartment door slid open again. The chubby boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.

"We've already told him we haven't seen it," said Ron, but the girl wasn't listening, she was looking at the wand in his hand.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then." She sat down next to Harry.

"Er - all right," said Ron. His ears were turning pink again like he clearly hadn't been expecting to have an audience.

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

He waved his wand like Harry had done in the wand shop, but nothing happened. Scabbers stayed gray and possibly comatose.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" said the girl. "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard -I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough - I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

She said all this very fast and Harry thought it strange that she'd so willingly admit to being Muggleborn in front of them. Wasn't that something people hid? He thought, but maybe, like Harry initially, she didn't know any better.

"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron muttered.

"Harry Potter," said Harry casually, not expecting her to have heard of him.

"Are you really?" said Hermione. "I know all about you, of course - I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."

"Am I?" said Harry, thinking maybe he should read some of these...just to know what people were saying about him.

"Goodness, didn't you know? I'd have found out everything I could if it was me," said Hermione. "Do either of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad... Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."

And she left, taking the chubby, crying boy with her.

"Whatever house I'm in, I hope she's not in it," said Ron as soon as the door slid shut behind her. "Stupid spell - George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud."

"What house are your brothers in?" asked Harry, thinking of Slytherin and how Hermione Granger couldn't be right that Gryffindor was the best.

"Gryffindor," said Ron. "Mom and Dad were in it, too. I don't know what they'll say if I'm not. I don't suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin."

Harry's eyes widened in shock.

"But what's so wrong with that? I've heard Slytherin's the best one."

"Really? But I would have thought you of all people-that's the house You-Know-Who was in!"

"Yeah, and so were loads of other people," said Harry flippantly. He didn't really want to talk about Houses, especially since Hufflepuff seemed to be the elephant in the room that neither of them wanted to admit they were scared to be in, so Harry tried to change the subject.

"So what do your oldest brothers do now that they've left, anyway?"

he asked. Harry was wondering what a wizard did once he'd finished school...surely something way more exciting than selling drills.

"Charlie's in Romania studying dragons, and Bill's in Africa doing something for Gringotts," said Ron. "Did you hear about Gringotts? It's been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don't suppose you get that with the Muggles - someone tried to rob a high security vault."

Harry stared thinking of vault 713 and the tiny package Dumbledore had retrieved that day in Diagon Alley. He remembered the goblin telling Dudley that if you tried to rob one of the vaults, you'd end up trapped inside for years.

"What happened to them?" he asked.

"Nothing, that's why it's such big news. They haven't been caught. My dad says it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they don't think they took anything, that's what's odd. 'Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You -Know-Who's behind it."

"But You-Know-Who's dead," said Harry and Ron shrugged, but didn't answer him for a good while.

"What's your Quidditch team?" Ron asked suddenly, as if trying to fill the awkward silence.

"Er - I don't know any," Harry confessed. Draco Malfoy never had gotten around to telling him about any.

"What!" Ron exclaimed. "Oh, you wait, it's the best game in the world -" And he was off, explaining all about the four balls and the positions of the seven players, describing famous games he'd been to with his brothers and the broomstick he'd like to get if he had the money. It was a lot like football, Harry thought and he was just about to ask if the league was as corrupt as Uncle Vernon always said FIFA was, but then the compartment door slid open yet again, however, it wasn't Neville the chubby boy, or buck-toothed Hermione Granger this time.

Three boys entered, and Harry recognized the middle one at once: it was

Draco Malfoy.

"So there you are," he said. "I've been looking all over for you. People have been saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. Really freaking out, some of them," he said as he mimed fainting.

Harry smirked and glanced questioningly at the two boys flanking him. Both of them were thickset like Dudley, but wearing bland, grumpy expressions on their faces. Standing on either side of Draco like that, they looked like bodyguards.

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," said Draco carelessly, noticing where Harry was looking. Then Draco's own eyes rested momentarily on Ron. "No need to ask who this is. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles and more children than they can afford."

Harry tried to hide his snigger with a cough. He really hadn't meant to laugh and now he felt kind of bad...Ron had been nice to him.

Draco turned back to Harry. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."

He held out his hand to shake Harry's. Harry looked at Draco and then back over his shoulder and then back at Draco before shaking his hand.

"I mean, sure, I don't know much about wizarding families...I kind of thought they're all okay unless they have Muggles in them, but we can be friends, sure."

Harry thought Draco was going to get angry, but felt relieved when he smirked instead.

"Touché, Potter, touché. See what I mean boys? Harry Potter is going to be joining us in Slytherin for sure."

"Err...want a Chocolate Frog?" Harry offered, gesturing to the sweets he and Ron had yet to finish. Gregory Goyle reached out to take one, but a second later, drew back with a yelp of pain. Scabbers the rat, who evidently was alive, hung off the edge of his finger with his sharp little teeth digging in enough to draw blood.

Goyle shook Scabbers off and ran off down the corridor with Crabbe. Perhaps he thought there were more rats lurking in their sweets, or he just really didn't like Ron, because Draco Malfoy also didn't linger.

"Thanks for the offer Potter, but I guess we'll have to wait and see you at school," he said and he left without even a word of acknowledgement to Ron, whose face was as red as his hair. Harry didn't have time to say anything though, because moments later, Hermione Granger came back.

"What has been going on?" she said, looking at the sweets all over the floor and Ron picking up Scabbers by his tail. He didn't seem to have heard Hermione...or was just too distracted.

"So...you've...uhh...met Malfoy before?" he asked. Harry explained about their meeting in Diagon Alley.

"Well, I'm sorry if he's your mate, but I can't ever be friends with him. You heard what he said about my parents! Besides, I've heard of his family," said Ron darkly. "They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side." He explained leaving Harry to wonder whether or not this was true. Ron turned to Hermione. "Can we help you with something?"

"You'd better hurry up and put your robes on, I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there. You haven't been fighting, have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there!"

"Scabbers has been fighting, not us," said Ron, scowling at her. "Would you mind leaving while we change?"

"All right - I only came in here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors," said Hermione in a pompous voice. "And you've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?"

Ron glared at her as she left. "Honestly, I'd take being in a house with Malfoy over her any day," he said.

Harry and Ron took off their jackets and pulled on their long black robes. Ron's were a bit short for him and you could see his sneakers underneath them. Then, just as Hermione had predicted, a voice echoed through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

The train slowed down and finally stopped with a long, slow steam whistle.

People pushed their way toward the door and out onto a tiny, dark platform. Harry was surprised at how cool it was outside for a late summer night, but supposed maybe the weather was different this close to the mountains. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a loud, booming voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

Harry followed the sound of the voice and was startled to see an immensely large and wild-looking man coming towards them. He was taller than anyone Harry had ever seen-including Dumbledore. He was thicker than Dudley, Crabbe and Goyle combined and his hands were the size of trash can lids. To complete his ferocious look, he had mangled black biker hair trailing down his back and a huge beard to match.

"C'mon, follow me - any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me! Name's Rubeus Hagrid, Hogwarts Gamekeeper and I'm here to take you up to the school," he explained. Seeing no alternative, Harry and Ron followed him down a steep, narrow path. Nobody spoke much, though Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, was still crying like a baby.

"Ye' all get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, smiling a museum tour guide's smile beneath his thick beard. "jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud "Oooooh!"and Harry struggled to push his way to the front of the group.

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black take. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers. Harry tried to think back to all the places he'd been across Europe with the Dursleys as a kid, but he'd never seen anything quite like it in his life. Nor anything nearly as magnificent.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little wooden boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry couldn't find Draco Malfoy, so he followed Ron into a boat, where they were unpleasantly joined by Neville and Hermione.

"Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then - FORWARD!"

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, moving across the lake like skates on an ice rink, all of their own accord.

When the reached the harbor outside of Hogwarts, they stepped out into a crunchy rock and sandy surface.

"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

"Trevor!" cried Neville, holding out his hands. Harry hoped this would mean he would finally stop crying...he was only embarrassing himself, after all.

Then they clambered up a passageway in the rockface after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around a huge, oak front door.

Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

 **Next Chapter: Chapter 7: Slytherin to be released by Friday, March 4th 2016! :) Right now, Harry wants to be friends with both Ron and Draco, but will he be able to if he gets sorted into the snake house?**


	7. Chapter 7: Slytherin

**Chapter7: Slytherin**

The door creaked open and Harry caught sight of a tall skinny witch in emerald green robes standing in the entrance way. She wore a pointed witch's hat that matched her robes and her gray-streaked dark hair was pulled up in a very severe-looking bun. Harry's first thought  
was that this was not someone to cross.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here," the witch replied and pulled the door wide open.

The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursleys' house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

They followed the stern-looking woman across the taupe-colored stone floor. Harry heard the sound of hndreds of voices laughing and talking from a tall wooden doorway to his right, but the woman led the first years not through here, but into a small chamber off the hall.

"Welcome to Hogwarts. I am Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress," she said. Harry thought the emerald pointed witch's hat on her head looked like an intimidating bird, perched there and ready to strike out at anyone who stepped out of line. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses," she continued. "The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room. The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rulebreaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours. Now, the Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."

Her eyes seemed to find the casually unbuttoned top of Harry's cloak and then again on Ron's dirt-smudged nose, quite judgementally. Harry was beginning to get the feeling that he did not like her.

"I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor McGonagall. "Please wait quietly." She left the chamber. Harry swallowed and dared speak.

"How exactly do they sort us into houses?" he asked Ron.

"Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking." Harry's heart began to beat very quickly. A test? Draco Malfoy had said he had a lot of qualities of Slytherin...but what if he didn't do well on the test (because he was nervous) and got placed in Hufflepuff? He looked around and saw that everyone else looked terrified...so as long as he kept his cool, he would still come off looking the better despite his nerves...he hoped.

Then, several people behind Harry screamed all at once.

"What the -?" Harry gasped. About twenty transparent-looking figures had just energed seemingly through the back wall.

Harry felt his face wrinkle in confusion as he glanced at Ron, who far from being terrified, was laughing.

"Are they…?"

"Ghosts? Yep. That one over there-the fat one-he's the fat friar, ghost of Hufflepuff House."

Harry looked over at the ghost who did indeed look like a fat little monk, arguing with a female ghost who had long brown (albeit slightly transparent) hair.

"Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance -"

"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost - I say, what are you all doing here?"

Both ghosts seemed to suddenly notice the first years.

"New students!" said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. "About to be Sorted, I suppose? "Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" My old house, you know."

 ****"Move along now," said a sharp voice. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start." The green-hatted falcon woman had returned. The ghosts immediately glided away through the opposite wall as if they, too, did not like her. "Now, form a line," Professor McGonagall told the first years, "and follow me."

Suddenly feeling a burst of odd, but welcome, confidence, Harry got into line behind a boy with sandy hair and, with Ron behind him, they walked out of the chamber, back across the Entrance Hall, and through the large wooden door into the Great Hall.

It reminded him of the old castles in movies around Halloweentime, between its vastness and the fact that it was lit by thousands of candles floating in midair over the four long tables that stretched the length of the hall. It was at these four tables that all the students sat, and Harry could only assume, based on the colors of the robes and pins and ties and scarves they wore, that each table was for a different Hogwarts House.

 ****These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall facing the students was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the rest of the hall, with the teachers behind them. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. He heard Hermione whisper, "Its bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in _Hogwarts, A History_."

 ****It reminded Harry of the plastic Glow-in-the-Dark stars he and Dudley used to stick to their bedroom ceilings, except much more real-looking. Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she  
put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let it in the house. Maybe they had to cast a spell to get it clean? For a few seconds, there  
was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth - and the hat began to sing:  
 _"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty, But don't judge on what you see, I'll eat myself if you can find  
A smarter hat than me.  
You can keep your bowlers black, Your top hats sleek and tall,  
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat And I can cap them all.  
There's nothing hidden in your head The Sorting Hat can't see,  
So try me on and I will tell you Where you ought to be.  
You might belong in Gryffindor,  
Where dwell the brave at heart,  
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart;_

 _You might belong in Hufflepuff,  
Where they are just and loyal,  
Those patient Hufflepuffis are true And unafraid of toil;  
Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,  
if you've a ready mind,  
Where those of wit and learning,  
Will always find their kind;  
Or perhaps in Slytherin  
You'll make your real friends,  
Those cunning folk use any means  
To achieve their ends.  
So put me on! Don't be afraid!  
And don't get in a flap!  
You're in safe hands (though I have none)  
For I'm a Thinking Cap!"  
_The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

"So we've just got to try on the hat!" Ron whispered to Harry. "I'll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll."

Harry was positively grinning. Trying on the hat was a lot better than having to do a spell and surely if the hat was to be trusted, it would see where he truly belonged and not put him in Hufflepuff after all...it still all seemed so unreal, though. He couldn't wait to write to Dudley later and tell him that the first major decision of his school career had been made by a talking hat.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.  
"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said.

"Abbott, Hannah!"

The first person to be sorted was a tall skinny girl with long blonde hair in pigtails. She nervously left the line, sat down on the stool and put on the hat. A moments pause -  
"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat. Harry smirked. This was good-the more people got put into Hufflepuff before him, the less room there would be to put him there.

The table on the right (where students were decked out in bits of yellow amidst their black robes) cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Harry saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat again, and the timid Susan stumbled off the stool and went off to sit next to Hannah.

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

The table second from the left (where many of the students wore scarves and ties of blue) clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them. Ravenclaw, Harry decided, would be his second-choice house after Slytherin. Both Draco and Ron had agreed it was the second best option, even if they disagreed on the first.

"Brocklehurst, Mandy" went to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown, Lavender" became the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left began to shout a little unnervingly; Harry could see Ron's twin brothers catcalling and twirling their red and yellow ties.

"Bulstrode, Millicent!" A large and burly-looking girl separated herself from the line of students and strode to sit on the stool. She was so thickset, a bit like a female Dudley, that Harry thought she might break it.

"SLYTHERIN!" Shouted the hat, after not too much consideration. Perhaps it was Harry's imagination, after all he'd heard about Slytherin, but he thought they looked like the coolest group. He regretted his thoughts about Millicent Bulstrode almost instantly, since he was hoping to be her new classmate.

"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Harry remembered being picked for teams during gym at his old school. He had always been first to be chosen, after Dudley. It wasn't even because he was good, but because everyone knew Dudley would beat them up if they didn't.

"Finnegan, Seamus!" The sandy-haired boy next to Harry in line sauntered off to put on the hat.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

"Granger, Hermione!" The annoying know-it-all girl from the train actually ran to the stool and jammed the hat so fiercely onto her messy head of hair that Harry actually thought he heard it rip.

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat. Ron groaned. Harry knew Ron wanted to be in Gryffindor, but didn't want to be with Hermione. Maybe he and Harry would be in Slytherin together, he thought and this cheered him immensely.

When Neville Longbottom, the crybaby who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. Harry couldn't help laughing this time, but neither could anyone else. To make matters worse for Neville, the hat took a long time to decide with him. When it finally shouted, "GRYFFINDOR," Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid even more laughter to give it to "MacDougal, Morag." Gryffindor was beginning to look like the house for dumb people and not the place Harry wanted to be.

"Malfoy, Draco!"

Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, "SLYTHERIN!" Harry watched Malfoy join the green and black-clad Slytherins and hoped the hat would do the same with him.

There weren't many people left now. "Moon" "Nott" "Parkinson" then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil" then "Perks, Sally-Anne" and then, at last - "Potter, Harry!"

As Harry stepped forward, he could feel everyone's eyes on him all at once. People were whispering all over the hall just like the people in Diagon Alley.

"Potter, did she say?" _The_ Harry Potter?"

Harry sat down on the little three-legged stool and the hat dropped over his eyes.

"Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, A my goodness, yes - and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting...So where to put you?"

Harry gripped the edges of the stool and thought, _Not Hufflepuff, not Hufflepuff._

"Not Hufflepuff, eh?" said the hat in his ear. "Are you sure? You have all the makings of a hard worker, you know, it's all here in your head, and Hufflepuff will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that - no? Well, if you're sure - better be SLYTHERIN!"

Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. He took off the hat and walked with a reknewed surge of confidence toward the Slytherin table. He was so relieved to have been chosen for Slytherin and not put in Hufflepuff he hardly noticed that he was getting the strangest cheer yet. Nearly everyone at the Slytherin table had stood to clap, shake his hand and give him a standing ovation, but the rest of the hall was so quiet he could have heard a pin drop. He sat down between Draco and a first-year girl with short brown hair and looked up at the staff table, which he could see properly now. He tried to make eye contact with Dumbledore, who sat in a large gold chair at the center of the table, but Dumbledore wasn't looking in his direction.

And now there were only three people left to be sorted. "Thomas, Dean," a Black boy even taller than Ron, became a Gryffindor, "Turpin, Lisa," became a Ravenclaw and then it was Ron's turn. He was pale green by now. Harry crossed his fingers under the table but a second later the hat had shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry clapped loudly and noticed he was the only Slytherin to do so, so he stopped at once. He also noticed that Ron was getting a much warmer welcome from the rest of the hall than he, Harry, had gotten.

"Zabini, Blaise!"

"SLYTHERIN!" A tan-skinned boy with curly hair sat down across from Harry as Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.

Then, Dumbledore himself got to his feet. He beamed at the students with a smile that extended all the way up to his eyes, which shone misty behind his half-moon spectacles as if the Sorting always made him emotional.

"Welcome," he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!"

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not.

"Is he - a bit mad?" he asked Draco uncertainly.

"Mad?" said Draco with a wave of his hand. "Of course, he's mad. My father thinks he's a lunatic with no business running a school...but I guess they figure he hasn't done anything crazy enough to get the governors to fire him. Potatoes, Harry?"  
Harry's mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs. It reminded him a little of his meal with the Dursleys last night...except for the peppermint humbugs, of course. Dudley was going to be extremely jealous that Harry was feasting again so soon.

Just then though, Harry felt like he'd been plunged into a bucket of dry ice. It took him a second to realize that this was because another ghost had just swooped down upon their table and slid right through him.

"Oh, look! You must be the Bloody Baron!" Draco exclaimed, sounding pleased with himself. "He's the Slytherin House ghost," he muttered to Harry and Harry looked up. Bloody, he was, and with a haggard looking face and pirate-style robes all stained silver with transparent blood.

"How did he get covered in blood?" Harry asked as soon as the Baron had passed to the other end of the table.

The girl next to him shrugged, but Draco replied in a low voice, "I heard he murdered somebody and then tried to kill himself!" Harry shuddered, but was intrigued all the same.

When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding - Harry, who was starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at  
the High Table again. Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore and occasionally looking at Harry and the rest of the Slytherins with something he took for utmost distaste. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin.

It happened very suddenly. The black-haired teacher looked past Quirrell's turban straight into Harry's eyes - and a soft, cool ripple coursed through the scar on Harry's forehead, like it was being run over with an ice cube, only there were no ghosts around this time. But then the feeling went away as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling Harry had gotten from the teacher's look - a feeling that he knew something about Harry that Harry himself did not know.

"Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?" he asked Draco.

"Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? Another mad one. They say he went off to fight vampires and hasn't been the same since because he was scared so bad-and to think he's supposed to be the one teaching us how to protect ourselves. Ha! But _that_ teacher on the other hand, is Professor Snape. He's Head of Slytherin House and probably the smartest teacher at this school. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to - everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job...would be much better at it, if you ask me…"

Harry watched Snape for a while with interest, but Snape didn't look at him again. At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent.

"Ahem - just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well. I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch," he said and Harry thought he heard Draco mutter something about trying out anyway, even though first years weren't allowed.

"And finally," continued Dumbledore, suddenly sounding very serious. "I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death." Harry and Draco laughed, but not many others did. He couldn't be serious, could he?

"What kind of school even is this," Harry muttered.

"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cried Dumbledore now smiling again. Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.  
"Everyone pick their favorite tune," said Dumbledore, "and off we go!" And the school bellowed:

 _"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts, Teach us something please,  
Whether we be old and bald  
Or young with scabby knees,  
Our heads could do with filling With some interesting stuff,  
For now they're bare and full of air, Dead flies and bits of fluff,  
So teach us things worth knowing, Bring back what we've forgot,  
just do your best, we'll do the rest, And learn until our brains all rot._

 ****"Ah, music," Dumbledore said, when they'd all finished singing. "A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"

 ****The Slytherin first years followed a Prefect named Gemma Farley through the crowd, out of the Great Hall and down a marble staircase into the Dungeons. It was cool and dark down there, with greenish tinted stone walls lit only by a few smoky torches.

At the very end of a long hallway, they reached a part of stone wall that looked greener than the rest.

"Welcome to the Slytherin Common Room. The password changes about every two weeks or so-this week, it's Salazar," said Gemma. And once she said "salazar," Harry was amazed to see the wall slide forward to reveal a narrow passageway into the Slytherin Common Room, a low room furnished with elegant furniture and silver serpent statues. He could hear the sound of water lapping against the walls and thought for sure they had to be under the lake.

Gemma directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a silver spiral staircase -they found their beds at last: six four-posters hung with soft green, velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, Harry, Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, Blaise and a short blonde boy called Theodore Nott all pulled on their pajamas and collapsed into their beds.

Harry was going to write Dudley a letter all about his first night at Hogwarts and being sorted into Slytherin, but he decided to do it later because he was too tired. He ended up falling asleep almsost at once.

He dreamed he was wearing Professor McGonagall's emerald pointed hat, which kept talking to him, telling him he must transfer to Gryffindor at once, because it was his destiny. Harry told the hat he didn't want to be in Gryffindor; it got heavier and heavier; he tried to pull it off but it tightened  
painfully - and there was Draco trying to pull it off of him while Hermione Granger laughed-then Draco turned into the hook-nosed teacher, Snape, who told Harry he really was supposed to be in Gryffindor. Then there was a burst of green light and Harry woke with a start. He rolled over and fell asleep again, and when he woke next day, he didn't remember the dream at all.


	8. Chapter 8: Better Than Others

**Chapter 8: Better Than Others**

"There, look."

"Where?"

"Next to the tall kid with the blonde hair."

"Wearing the glasses?"

"Did you see his face?"

"Did you see his scar?"

Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory the next day alongside Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle to go up to Defense Against the Dark Arts. People on the staircase doubled back to get another look at him and he really wished they woudn't. Couldn't they get their look at him without moving around so much? He was having a hard enough time finding his classes since everything else seemed to move around, too. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk.

Even Draco Malfoy seemed to have trouble navigating the many staircases (there were 142 in total) at Hogwarts despite his repeated claims that his family had been going there for centuries and he knew so much about the school already that he could walk it in his sleep.

The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. The Bloody Baron was always eager to point new Slytherins in the right direction with a wave of his transparent sword, but the other ghosts were not so keen-the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw ghosts even going so far as to point Slytherins toward trick staircases and dead-end passageways on purpose, to make them late for class.

The one clear benefit to having the Bloody Baron as house ghost, however, seemed to be immunity from Peeves the poltergeist. He was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, "GOT YOUR CONK!" But for whatever reason, the Bloody Baron was the only figure in Hogwarts, living or dead, that could exert any control over Peeves at all-because the little poltergeist was terrified of him.

Then there was the caretaker, Argus Filch-a wheezy sort of man that was a whole other host of trouble if he caught you where he thought you shouldn't be. Draco had warned Harry about Filch on their very first morning, saying that his father told him Filch generally favored Slytherins as long as they stayed out of his way.

Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a skeletal, stripe-patterned creature with bulging, lamp like eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone, sticking close to the walls and shadows so as to remain unseen. Break a rule in front of her or let her catch you out of the dormitory after curfew and she'd whisk off for Filch as Goyle learned their second night after being caught on a most Dudleyish midnight stroll to the kitchens to look for sweets.

By the time the first year Slytherins made it to their classes, they found there was a lot more to magic than waving their wands and saying "Abracadabra."

Their first class, Defense Against the Dark Arts, unfortunately turned out to be a bit of a joke. Not that Draco hadn't warned him. They found his classroom at the end of a third floor corridor (very near to the forbidden area, as it so happened) and for some odd reason, it smelled oddly of garlic. Professor Quirrell told them it was to warn off a vampire he'd offended in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story. For one thing, when Vincent Crabbe asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and Theodore Nott insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went.

After Defense Against the Dark Arts, they attended History of Magic, which Harry could tell right away was going to be the most boring class. He'd always found Muggle history dry enough, what with all the memorization of names and dates, but he could see wizard history would be no different even though it was the only class taught by a ghost. Draco told Harry and an interested gang of Slytherins that his father told him that Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down information, and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.

On Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, they had to go out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology with a short, fat witch called Professor Sprout (Head of Hufflepuff). She was a little daffy but seemed to know her stuff all the same and in her class, they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi in the magical world, and found out what they were used for.

On Tuesday at midnight, the Slytherins trooped up to the tallest tower with the Ravenclaws and studied the night skies through their telescopes and under the instruction of a pretty dark-haired witch with a hooked nose called Professor Sinistra, learned the names of different stars and how the moon phases and movements of the planets influenced their spellwork.

On Wednesday morning, Harry met Professor Flitwick, Charms teacher and Head of Ravenclaw House, for the first time when the Slytherins attended their double Charms period with the Hufflepuffs. Flitwick was an extremely tiny wizard who greatly resembled Aunt Petunia's garden gnome and who had to stand on a pile of textbooks to see over his desk. At the start of their first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry's name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight-the first teacher to fully acknowledge Harry's celebrity in front of a full class.

As he'd anticipated, Professor McGonagall the falcon-ess witch who taught Transfiguration and headed Gryffindor House, was not someone to cross. In fact, from the very minute he stepped into her class, he sensed even stronger than he had at the sorting ceremony, that she did not like him.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said as they scrambled to find seats (Harry and Draco opting for desks nearest the back of the room). "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned." Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again as if they were supposed to be impressed.

"Show-off," Draco muttered under his breath. "We won't be changing furniture into animals, or doing anything remotely fun at all, for a _long_ time if my mother's assessment is any indication."

"Mr. Malfoy! I do not permit students to talk while I am talking! Five points from Slytherin!"

Harry's jaw dropped, but Draco rolled his eyes like he was entirely unfased and said they'd for sure get the points back in Potions with Snape on Friday.

Potions with Professor Snape had been the class Harry was most looking forward to since receiving his timetable on Monday. While he was relieved to find out that he wasn't miles behind everyone else in classes, he thought Potions might be the one lesson where not going up magical wouldn't be any kind of hindrance. All you had to do was read the book and follow a recipe of sorts, after all. And besides that, there was the interesting sense of familiarity that flooded through Harry when he saw Snape at the feast that first night-like he knew him from somewhere he couldn't quite remember. He knew this was quite impossible, but still, he was interested to explore the dejavu further.

 ****Friday turned out to be an important day for Harry and Draco (though the latter would never admit it). They finally managed to find their way through the winding dungeon passageways and up to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.

"Excited for Potions?" Harry asked Draco as he poured sugar on his porridge. It was a double period with the Gryffindors, and would be the first time Harry saw Ron Weasley since the sorting separated them into rival houses.

"I suppose," said Draco. "Professor Snape's our Head of House. Heard he favors us-unlike the other teachers here. Now we'll be able to see if it's true."

"Even if he doesn't, he can't be worse than McGonagall," said Harry. Draco chuckled, but Harry frowned.

"Doesn't seem fair does it? How all the other teachers seem to either hate us or expect more from us in lessons just because we're in Slytherin…" It was a thought that had been lingering on the edge of Harry's thoughts all week. Draco merely shrugged as if he wasn't bothered.

"It's just because they know we're better than the others. They're harder on us to give the other houses a fair shake," he said, but before Harry could answer, the mail arrived.

Harry had gotten used to this by now, but it had given him a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps. Hedwig had returned from the Dursleys twice already with parcels laden with Mars Bars and Snickers and other sweet treats from the Muggle world. After writing to his relatives about his selection for Slytherin House, they'd sent a pound of green and black licorice wheels and sour green gummy snakes. Draco had bitten into the end of one of these snakes with some uncertainty and spat it out almost at once, not expecting something so sour. Crabbe and Goyle, in contrast, had gobbled up half the candy in the common room before Harry had even gotten around to it. This morning, however, Hedwig fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl, nibbled Harry's ear and dropped a small note onto his plate. Harry tore it open at once. It said, in a very neat script:

 _Dear Harry,  
I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come up to my office on the third floor and have a cup of tea with me around three?  
I am interested to hear all about your first week. Send an answer back with Hedwig._

 _Professor Dumbledore  
P.S. I enjoy lemon drops. _

__Harry borrowed Draco's quill, scribbled Yes, please, see you later on the back of the note, and sent Hedwig off again. Draco looked away like he hadn't even seen the exchange even though Harry was sure he'd seen who the letter was from.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons, not far from the common room. The classroom was eerie and dark, filled with work tables set up with braziers for each cauldron and lined along the walls with pickled animals floating in different colored glass jars.

Snape, like Flitwick, started the class by taking the roll call, and like Flitwick, he paused at Harry's name.

"Ah, Yes," he said softly, "Harry Potter..." Harry could see Ron Weasley (identifiable by his bright red hair) sitting a few tables away with Hermione Granger and the crying toad boy...was he rolling his eyes?

Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were a shiny, glossy black like the tumbled space rocks at the science museum.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word - like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach." More silence followed this little speech. Harry and Draco exchanged eager looks, ready to start proving they weren't dunderheads. Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass (fellow Slytherins) were sitting next to them looking nervous.

"Mr. Potter…" said Snape suddenly. "Your mother was extraordinarily talented at potions...as was yours Mr. Malfoy," he added, though it seemed like an afterthought. "Might either of you be able to tell the class what I would get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Powdered root of what to an infusion of what? Harry glanced at Draco, who looked as stumped as he was, but over on the Gryffindor side, Hermione Granger's hand had shot into the air. Harry felt a surge of determination to get the answer first surge through him. She was Muggle-born, after all...surely he could figure it out first. Snape's expression softened.

"Bit difficult for the first lesson, I expect. Let's try another. Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?" Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, but Snape ignored her.

Harry didn't have the faintest idea what a bezoar was. Nor it seemed, did Draco.

"One more. What is the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?" Snape seemed determined that Harry or Draco have the opportunity to get a question right before they'd even had a lesson...and Harry was determined not to let the chance slip away. He had, after all, looked through his books at the Dursleys', but he couldn't remember _everything_ in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi

Snape was still ignoring Hermione's quivering hand. At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.

"Sit down!" Snape turned to snap at Hermione and as he did so, Harry saw something land on his des in front of him as though it had been gently tossed. Harry risked a glance at it. Scrawled their in a neat, delicate cursive, the words: _they're the same plant-used in werewolf potion._ Curious as to his mysterious benefactor, but just as eager to prove himself, Harry shot his hand into the air.

"Err...monkshood and wolfsbane are the same plant, aren't they, Professor? They're used in a potion for...for werewolves, aren't they?" As soon as he'd spoken, he couldn't believe his risk. What if the person who'd passed him the note was wrong or just trying to humiliate him? What if Snape asked him to explain further? To his relief, however, Snape merely offered a rare smile.

"Thank you, Mr. Potter. Five points will be awarded to Slytherin house." Harry couldn't resist a grin in spite of himself. He'd gotten back the points McGonagall took from Draco in Transfiguration!

"For your information, class, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, as Mr. Potter has told us, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"  
There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment.

Things only improved for the Slytherins as the Potions lesson continued. Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Harry and Draco, whom he seemed to like. Meanwhile, he was positively brutal on the Gryffindors. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Draco and Harry had stewed their horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. The crying toad boy had somehow managed to melt his partner's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while the toad boy, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs. Soon after, he was crying sloppy fat tears like he seemed accustomed to.

"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?" The boy continued to cry as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

"Take him up to the hospital wing," Snape spat at Hermione Granger. Then he rounded on Ron Weasley, who had been working with Hermione next to the toad boy.  
"You - Weasley- why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor."

Harry tried to make eye contact with Ron, but he seemed to deliberately avoid him.

As they climbed the steps out of the dungeon an hour later, Harry's mind was racing. Where had he seen Snape before? Why did Gryffindor and Slytherin hate each other? Who had slipped him the note about the monkshood and wolfsbane? It had to have been a Slytherin, he thought...and the only ones behind him close enough to have slipped him a note were Theodore Nott and two girls, Millicent Bulstrode and Saiph Lestrange, so he supposed it had to have been one of them.

 ****At five to three, he left lunch in the Great Hall and made his way up to the third floor to Dumbledore's office, which was guarded by a large stone gargoyle that refused to budge despite Harry's insistence that he had a meeting with the headmaster. Not knowing what to do, Harry pulled out the letter and read it to the gargoyle, but the beast only moved aside when Harry got to the odd part about Dumbledore enjoying lemon drops...he supposed it was some kind of password or secret code, because the gargoyle then turned away completely and revealed a circular strairwell and a winding set of narrow stone steps behind it. Harry ascended these at top speed, not wanting to be late for Dumbledore, and when he finally knocked on the office door, he heard the headmaster call out quietly,

"Enter."

The Hogwarts Headmaster's office was a large circular room paneled in gold with walls covered in portraits of old witches and wizards moving about in their frames (former headmasters and headmistresses, perhaps?) There were also a number of spindly-legged tables covered in all sorts of silver objects and magical instruments Harry had not yet seen. Some of these were making low buzzing and whirring noises and still others were emitting puffs of smoke in different colors.

At the center, sat a large claw-footed golden desk at which Albus Dumbledore himself sat, long-bearded as ever and looking gallant in robes of royal blue.

"Good afternoon, Harry," said Dumbledore and with a wave of his wand, he conjured a a gold-backed chair with plush purple cushions for Harry to sit across from him. Harry did so and continued to look curiously around the office while Dumbledore poured tea into two small cups and set out a plate of peppermint humbugs. Harry was surprised to see a familiar patched and frayed old wizard's hat sitting at the top of a high bookshelf behind Dumbledore's desk-the Sorting Hat, though he supposed it had to be kept somewhere while it wasn't in use.

"How are your classes?" Dumbledore asked. Either Harry was imagining things or Dumbledore was regarding him a lot less warmingly than he did on Privet Drive.

"Er...they're all great. I think I like Potions the best so far though," said Harry. He told Dumbledore a bit about his first lessons, leaving out his associations of Professor McGonagall with unpleasantness and instead, glossed over Transfiguration as a class that seemed difficult, but in which he planned to improve with practice over time.

"And your cousin, he's started back at school as well?"

"Yes, sir, Dudley started on Monday, too." Yes, there was definitely something different about the way Dumbledore was regarding him, but Harry couldn't quite put his finger on it. Harry thought again about his earlier questions. He wanted to ask about Snape, about the significance of his being chosen for Slytherin, the long-standing row of sorts between muggle-borns and pure-bloods, but now that he was here with Dumbledore he couldn't seem to find the words.

"Professor Dumbledore?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"I was just wondering, about Professor Snape, sir...it's just...and I know it's not possible since I've lived in the muggle world since I was a year old...but I feel like I know Professor Snape from somewhere...it's like I know I've seen him before...do you know why that might be, sir?"

Harry couldn't help thinking that Dumbledore didn't quite meet his eyes when he said that.

"Curious feeling, isn't it? How one's mind can claim to see the same face in a different crowd?" Dumbledore began to pour himself more tea. Harry's eyes fell to a piece of paper on Dumbledore's desk-a cutting from the wizard newspaper, the Daily Prophet:

 _ **GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST:**_ _Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown.  
Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.  
"But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you," said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon._

 __Harry remembered Ron Weasley telling him on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn't mentioned the date.

"Professor Dumbledore!" said Harry, "that Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!"

There was no doubt about it, Dumbledore definitely didn't meet Harry's eyes this time. He merely smiled and offered him a peppermint humbug, to which Harry politely declined as he strained his eyes to read the story again as Dumbledore slid the paper away from him. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day. Professor Dumbledore had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that lumpy, carelessly wrapped little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?

As Harry walked back downstairs for dinner, he thought that none of the lessons he'd had so far had given him as much to think about as tea with Dumbledore. Had Dumbledore collected that package just in time? Where was it now? Why was Dumbledore treating Harry differently? And did Dumbledore know something about Snape that he didn't want to tell Harry?


	9. Chapter 9: The Forbidden Corridor

**Chapter 9: The Forbidden Corridor**

Harry had yet to figure out who'd slipped him the helpful note in Potions over those next weeks, but he continued to receive more-always in the nick of time, right before he was about to be called on, and more often than not, in Snape's class. Before he knew it, he was top of the class, much to the chagrin of the Gryffindors, who seemed determined to see him screw up. He didn't understand-Ron had seemed so nice on the train, but ever since they'd been sorted into rival houses, it was like they didn't like each other, even though there was no reason for them not to be friendly.

"It's just the way it is," Draco had said with a shrug when Harry voiced these concerns aloud.

Still, first-year Slytherins only had Potions with the Gryffindors, so they didn't have to put up with them much. Or at least, they didn't until they spotted a notice pinned up in the Slytherin common room that made most of them excited, but Harry anxious. Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday - and Slytherin and Gryffindor would be learning together.

"Typical," said Harry darkly. "Just what I always wanted. To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of everyone in Gryffindor." He had been looking forward to learning to fly more than anything else.

"You'll be better than all of them, just watch. It's in your blood," said Draco. But this did nothing to assuage Harry's nerves. It was easy for Draco to say when he had nothing to worry about, as he'd been flying his whole life-in fact, flying was almost all he talked about in the common room after lessons. He lamented about first years never getting on the house Quidditch teams and told long, dramatic stories that always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters. And the way Blaise Zabini told it, he'd spent most of his childhood zooming around the countryside on his top-model broomstick (for his mother was very rich and always bought him the best of everything). Even Crabbe and Goyle, thick as they were, had flying experience. Everyone from wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly and the fact that Harry didn't (and couldn't) only served to make him feel more like an outsider.

Draco had already had a big argument with Theodore Nott, the skinny blonde boy who shared their dormitory, about their preferred Quidditch teams. Harry had a hard enough time following all the rules of the game and long, drawn out stories they swapped about amazing plays they'd seen at matches they'd been to, but when they started talking about the specific players, it was all lost on him. From what he could gather, Draco supported the Falmouth Falcons, a British team that played in grey and white, while Nott supported the Wimbourne Wasps, who played in yellow and black.

Millicent Bulstrode had never been on a broomstick in her life, because her mother had never let her near one. Privately, Harry felt she'd had good reason, because Millicent was quite large and might not be able to keep a broomstick aloft.

Pansy Parkinson and Saiph Lestrange were almost as nervous about learning to fly as Harry was (he heard them talking about it with Daphne Greengrass at breakfast). After all, this was not something you could learn by heart out of a book - not that they weren't trying (anything to show up the Gryffindors, after all). At breakfast on Thursday, he even heard the Carrow twins exchanging flying tips from a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages, and usually they hardly talked about anything at all

Their chatter was interrupted, however, by the arrival of the mail. Harry had continued to receive numerous letters and parcels from home since his note from Dumbledore, something that left Ron and the others scowling with jealousy over at the Gryffindor table. Today, Hedwig simply stopped in to nibble his ear and steal a bite of toast, having brought him a letter and a pack of video game tokens from Dudley yesterday (these weren't much use to him at Hogwarts, but it was the thought that counted, he supposed). Draco's eagle owl brought him a parcel of wizarding sweets from home (all bertie botts every flavor beans, chocolate frogs and other candies such as those Harry had sampled on the Hogwarts Express) and the Carrow twins' identical minute owls dropped equally identical small packages into their laps (purple for Flora and green for Hestia). These turned out to be a special sort of gloves to wear to increase dexterity on a broomstick, and the Slytherins admired them eagerly.

At three-thirty that afternoon, Harry, Draco, and the other Slytherins hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. The sun rested high in the sky, which was a cloudless, clear blue. It was still quite warm, but the air had a certain crispness about it that indicated autumn was definitely on the horizon. Together, the Slytherins trooped down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat area on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance. The Gryffindors were already there, and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. Harry had heard Marcus Flint and Adrian Pucey (both older Slytherins) complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them were quite outdated or always leaned too far to the right.

Shortly after, their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up." Harry glanced down at his broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles. "Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!"'

"UP!" everyone shouted. Harry's broom jumped into his hand at once, as did Draco's, but they were some of the few that did. Pansy Parkinson's had simply rolled over on the ground, and Millicent Bulstrode's hadn't moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell when you were confident, thought Harry; for he and Draco weren't as keen on keeping their feet rooted to the ground as some of their classmates. Learning to fly was part of being a great wizard, after all.

Next, Madam Hooch showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Harry and Draco were delighted when she told Ron Weasley he'd been doing it wrong for years.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle - three - two -" But Neville Longbottom, the crying toad boy from Gryffindor, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips. "Come back, boy!" she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle - twelve feet - twenty feet.

Harry saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and - WHAM - a thud and a nasty crack and Neville Longbottom lay facedown on the grass in a sobbing heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight. Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his. "Broken wrist," Harry heard her mutter. "Come on, boy - it's all right, up you get.". She turned to the rest of the class. "None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear." Neville, his face tear-streaked as usual, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.

No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter. "Did you see his face, the great lump?" Harry chuckled. Now that they knew Neville was going to be alright, it was rather funny.

"Shut up, Malfoy," snapped Parvati Patil, a Gryffindor girl standing on Hermione Granger's other side.

"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said Pansy Parkinson, to Harry's right. "Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, Parvati."

Draco, however, bored already with laughing at Neville, had gotten onto his broomstick and was riding it in slow circles around their group, barely a few feet off the ground as though daring any of them to question him. Harry had to admire his nerve-and the fact that he really hadn't been boasting-he could fly well. He grinned and summoned his own broom, which again, shot into his outstretched hand at once. The Carrow twins rolled their eyes, though they smiled all the same, but Hermione Granger began to stamp her foot on the ground frustratedly.

"No!" she exclaimed. "Madam Hooch told us not to move - you'll get us all into trouble." Harry ignored her. He mounted his broom and kicked off gently from the ground so that he could hover around the practice area like Draco was.

"I bet you think you're something special, don't you?" Ron Weasley snarled suddenly, his face as red as his hair. "Over there in Slytherin, making fun of Neville, trying to be cool like you didn't just learn what a broomstick was two weeks ago...famous Harry Potter? What a load of toad spawn. Famous for something that happened before you could walk and talk? Making fun of Hermione on the train when you were raised by Muggles, yourself?"

"Oh come off it, we made fun of her together," Harry fired back, causing Hermione to fold her arms across her chest in a huff. But he didn't care. Blood was pounding in his ears now. Ron had been his friend-maybe not for long-but he had been, and why should that have changed just because they were in different houses?

"But if I'd known you were going to be so annoying-"

"When we met on the train, you all but wanted my autograph!" said Harry and he heard Draco snort back laughter as he drifted back over to where Harry and Ron were facing off, Ron's chin barely level with the end of Harry's broomstick.

"Bloody hell! Maybe that's what everyone's gotten you to think-Snape and Dumbledore and the others...and Malfoy the pureblood maniac!"

"You made fun of Draco just because he's pureblood, how does that make you any better?!" Everyone was crowded around them watching the argument now.

"You really do think you're special, don't you!? Well I'll show you-I've been flying since I was four years old. We'll even make it easy. Race you to the top of that turret and back, if you think you can make it," said Ron. "We'll even make it like real Quidditch-pretend this acorn's a Quaffle and try to get it from me!" He picked up a rather large acorn off the ground, mounted his own broomstick and shot off toward the turret over by the castle. He flew rather shakily, but was quite fast and Harry, without thinking, soared up after him. Air rushed through his hair, and his robes whipped out behind him -and in a rush of fierce joy he realized he'd found something he could do without being taught - this was easy, this was wonderful. He pulled his broomstick up a little to take it even higher, and heard screams and gasps of girls back on the ground and an admiring whoop from Draco. He met Ron at the turret, who looked stunned, and turned his broomstick sharply to face him in midair.

"So you can give me that acorn," Harry called, "or wait for me to knock you off that broom!"

"Oh, yeah?" said Ron, trying to sneer, but looking worried. Harry knew, somehow, what to do. He leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Ron like a javelin. Ron only just got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp about-face and held the broom steady. A few people below were clapping.

"No older brothers up here to save your neck, Weasley!" Harry called. The same thought seemed to have struck Ron.

"Catch it if you can, then!" he shouted, and he threw the round acorn high into the air and streaked back toward the ground. Harry saw, as though in slow motion, the acorn rise up in the air and then start to fall. He leaned forward and pointed his broom handle down - next second he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the acorn as it fell - wind whistled in his ears, mingled with the screams of people watching - he stretched out his hand - a foot from the ground he caught it, just in time to pull his broom straight, and he toppled gently onto the grass with the brown acorn clutched tightly in his fist.

Next thing he knew, the other students were crowding around him, the Slytherins patting him on the back while the Gryffindors stood back a ways, all positively scowling. Then,

"...Mr. Potter."

His heart sank faster than he'd just dived. Professor Snape had swooped down on them in his black cloak like a bat. Harry got to his feet, trembling, but Snape was apparently speechless, his black eyes flashing furiously.

"It wasn't his fault, Professor -"

"Be quiet, Miss Parkinson."

"But Weasley -"

"That's enough, Mr. Malfoy. Potter, follow me, now." Harry caught sight of Ron, Hermione and Parvati's triumphant faces as he left, walking numbly in Professor Snape's wake as he strode toward the castle. He was going to be expelled, he just knew it. He tried to open his mouth to say something, but couldn't seem to find any words. Professor Snape was sweeping along without even looking at him; he had to jog to keep up. Ron had flown just as far as Harry had and broken as many rules, so why wasn't he here, too, about to be expelled? Harry stared miserably at the ground. He hadn't even lasted a full month. He'd be packing his bags in ten minutes. What would his relatives say and how disappointed would they be when he turned back up on the doorstep? Up the front steps, up the marble staircase inside, and still Professor Snape didn't say a word to him. He wrenched open doors and marched along corridors with Harry trotting miserably behind him. Finally, he stopped outside a classroom, opened the door and poked his head inside.

"Excuse me, Professor Flitwick, could I borrow Flint for a moment?" Flint? thought Harry, bewildered; Marcus Flint? But why? The burly sixth year Marcus Flint strode outside of Flitwick's class looking confused.

"You wanted to see me, Professor?"

"Follow me, you two," said Professor Snape, and they marched on up the corridor, Snape still not looking at Harry. "In here." Professor Snape pointed them into a classroom that was empty except for Peeves, who was busy writing rude words on the blackboard. "Out, Peeves!" he barked. Peeves threw the chalk into a bin, which clanged loudly, and he swooped out cursing. Professor Snape slammed the door behind him and turned to face the two boys.

"Seven years...seven years I've held the Quidditch Cup in my office," Snape said and Harry thought this a very strange way to begin a conversation. "Potter!" he said, suddenly wheeling around to face Harry. "You know Marcus Flint, I trust? He's Captain of the Slytherin team." Harry nodded silently. He didn't have a clue what was going on, but he didn't seem to be getting expelled, and some of the feeling started coming back to his legs.

"You've been holding Seeker tryouts, Flint?" Snape rounded on Marcus Flint now and the older boy nodded, but in an offhand sort of way like he was worried he was about to get caught doing something wrong.

"Yeah...no one special turning up, though...Pucey actually tried out and wasn't bad, but then we'd need a new Chaser…"

"What if I'd told you I'd found you a Seeker?" Harry was more confused than ever now.

"Are you serious, Professor?"

"Completely," said Professor Snape. "This boy is a natural. He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive," he told Flint. "Didn't even scratch himself. Terrence Higgs couldn't have done it." Flint was now looking wide-eyed at Professor Snape, his mouth hanging open ever so slightly so that his badly chipped front teeth were clearly visible.

"He's just the build for a Seeker, too," said Flint, now walking around Harry and staring at him. "Light - speedy - little, like a secret weapon...and a first year, Gryffindor'll never be expecting it...but we'll have to get him a decent broom, Professor - a Nimbus Two Thousand or a Cleansweep Seven, I'd say."

"I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see if we can't bend the first-year rule. There's no doubt we need to keep our record. If we the lose our chance at the cup after a seven year streak, I won't be able to look Minerva McGonagall in the face for the rest of term..." said Professor Snape, who was now looking down at Harry with severity in his black eyes.

"I want to hear you're training hard, Potter, or I may change my mind about punishing you."

"You're not serious." It was dinnertime. Harry had just finished telling Draco what had happened when he'd left the grounds with Professor Snape. Draco had a book on curses and hexes open in front of him, but he slammed it shut at once. "Seeker?" he said. "But first years never - you must be the youngest house player in-"

"About a century, said Harry. "Flint told me." After their meeting with Professor Snape, Marcus Flint had hurriedly introduced Harry to the other Slytherin Chaser in addition to himself and Adrian Pucey, a fifth year called Graham Montague. Draco just sat and gaped at Harry with a mixture of awe and jealousy in his face. "I start training next week," Harry went on. "Only don't tell anyone, Flint wants to keep it a secret so we can surprise the Gryffindors." Just then, Lucian Bole and Derrick Peregrine, both fourth years, came into the hall, spotted Harry, and hurried over.

"Damn it, Potter" said Bole in a low voice, so no one at the Ravenclaw table could hear them. "Flint just told us. We're on the team too - Beaters."

"I tell you, we're going to win that cup again this year" said Peregrine. "McGonagall's gonna be so pissed-and on top of this happening, Crabbe and Goyle just dropped a load of dungbombs in her office." The four of them laughed.

"I was wondering where they'd gotten to," Draco remarked.

"They're on their way down here now-hopefully they make it before Filch catches them. Anyway, see you Potter, Malfoy."

Peregrine and Bole had hardly disappeared when someone far less welcome turned up: Ron Weasley, flanked by Hermione Granger and Neville the crying toad boy, whose left arm was in a sling.

"Woulda thought it'd be all over the school by now-famous Harry Potter gets expelled from Hogwarts, though I expect you managed to have it all hushed up.

"You're a lot braver now that you're back on the ground and you've got your little friends with you," said Harry coolly. There was of course nothing threatening about buck-toothed Hermione Granger and chubby Neville Longbottom who still had tear tracks on his face, but as the High Table was full of teachers, it didn't really matter anyway.

"I'd take you on anytime on my own," said Ron. "Tonight, if you want. Wizard's duel. Wands only - no contact. What's the matter? Never heard of a wizard's duel before, I suppose?"

"Of course he has," said Draco at once. "I'm his second, who's yours?" Ron looked over at his unfortunate comrades. "Hermione," he said. "Knows more spells than either of you two put together, after all. Is midnight all right? We'll meet you in the trophy room; Fred and George said it's always unlocked."

When the Gryffindors had gone, Draco smirked at Harry. "We could take those losers with our arms tied behind our backs."

"What is a wizard's duel?" said Harry. "And what do you mean, you're my second?"

"Well, a second's there to take over if you die," said Draco casually, flipping his book on curses open again, no doubt to give Harry ideas about spells to use later on. Catching the look on Harry's face, he added quickly, "But people only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards. I doubt Weasley'll be able to do much at all, what with that battered old excuse for a wand he's got."

For the remainder of the evening, Harry tried to hide his nerves while Draco went on about how it was the perfect end to the day. He and Crabbe spent a great deal of time in the common room after dinner giving Harry advice such as "Curse him right away and he'll never expect it, but if he tries to curse you, you'd better dodge it straight away." Now they were lying awake in their beds listening to the others falling asleep. There was a very good chance they were going to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris, and Harry felt he was pushing his luck, breaking another school rule today. On the other hand, Ron Weasley's stupid face kept looming up out of the darkness - this was his big chance to beat Ron face-to-face and prove he was more than a famous name. He couldn't miss it.

"Half-past eleven," Draco muttered at last, "we'd better go." They pulled on their bathrobes, picked up their wands, and crept across the dormitory, down the hall, and into the Slytherin common room. The water out in the Black Lake was lapping against the walls as loudly as ever and they were grateful for the noise to muffle their footsteps. The last thing they needed was Gemma Farley catching them leaving the common room at this hour. They had almost reached the sliding stone wall when a voice spoke from the chair nearest them,

"I can't believe you're going to leave without us." A lamp flickered on. Crabbe and Goyle sat in two squashy green armchairs facing them.

"Look, it's nothing personal, it's just that Harry and I have somewhere to be and-"

"We want to fight Gryffindors, too!" Crabbe exclaimed while Goyle stood up and the platter of cookies on his lap fell to the floor with a loud clang. Harry and Draco looked at each other. Then Harry looked at his watch.

"Fine, but if either of you get us caught, I'll never rest until I've learned that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about, and used it on the both of you," said Draco. The four of them left through the sliding stone wall and together, they made their way through the dungeon passageways and up a staircase to the third floor, where they crept toward the trophy room.

Ron and Hermione weren't there yet. The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them. Cups, shields, plates, and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. They edged along the walls, keeping their eyes on the doors at either end of the room. Harry took out his wand in case Ron leapt in and started at once. The minutes crept by.

"He's late, maybe he's chickened out," Harry whispered. Then a noise in the next room made them jump. Harry had only just raised his wand when they heard someone speak -and it wasn't Ron or Hermione.

"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner." It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris. Horror-struck, Harry waved madly at the other three to follow him as quickly as possible; they scurried silently toward the door, away from Filch's voice. Goyle's robes had barely whipped round the corner when they heard Filch enter the trophy room. "They're in here somewhere," they heard him mutter, "probably hiding."

"This way!" Harry mouthed to the others and they headed down a long gallery full of suits of armor. It was dark and they could hear Filch getting nearer.

"Bet it was that Mudblood's idea of a joke-tipping off Filch about students being out of bed and sending him after us. Cowardly, is what it is," hissed Draco. Crabbe and Goyle laughed, but Harry furiously tried to shush them. Then, Crabbe walked into Goyle, who swore loudly and toppled right into a suit of armor. The clanging and crashing was enough to wake the whole castle. "RUN!" Harry yelled, and the four of them sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see whether Filch was following - they swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor then another, Harry in the lead, without any idea where they were or where they were going - they ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passageway, hurtled along it and found themselves at a dead end in front of a locked door. This was it. This was the end. Crabbe and Goyle were now engaged in sort of a quiet fist-fight over whose fault it was they were about to be caught while Draco was trying to reason out if a letter from his father could get them out of it. Meanwhile, Harry could hear footsteps. Filch was running as quickly as he could down the corridor. Then, Harry felt something hit him in the back. A crumpled bit of paper. He picked it up and on it was written- _Alohomora: spell for unlocking magically locked doors._ With nothing to lose and no time to search for his (again) mysterious benefactor, Harry tapped the door's lock with his wand and whispered, "Alohomora!"

The lock clicked and the door swung open - they piled through it, shut it quickly, and pressed their ears against it, listening to Filch cursing in rage.

"He thinks this door is locked," Harry said. "I think we'll be okay once he leaves." But Draco, Crabbe and Goyle didn't seem to be listening to him. Instead, they were turned around facing whatever was in the room behind them.

"What?" Harry turned around - and saw, quite clearly, what. For a moment, he was sure he'd walked into a nightmare - this was too much, on top of everything that had happened so far. They weren't in a room, as he had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden. They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs. It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Harry knew that the only reason they weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant. Harry groped for the doorknob - between Filch and death, he'd take Filch.

They fell backward - Harry slammed the door shut, and they ran back down the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, because they didn't see him anywhere, but they hardly cared - all they wanted to do was put as much space as possible between them and that monster. They didn't stop running until they reached the sliding stone wall that marked the entrance to the Slytherin common room down in the dungeons. "Pure blood, pure blood," panted Harry and at his utterance of the password, the wall slid to the side and he and Draco scrambled into the common room with Crabbe and Goyle behind them.

"What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" said Draco finally. "My father will hear about this, you mark my words!"

"...you don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?" said a calm, quiet voice suddenly. The four of them froze and looked around them, seeing no one. Was it a ghost? Was it a ghost who'd passed Harry the note to use Alohomora? Was it a ghost who'd been passing him all those helpful hints in Potions?

Then, just as surely as he'd been staring at an empty space behind him, it was no longer empty. Saiph Lestrange was standing there in her school robes, a silvery cloak folded over one arm.

"It's my mother's invisibility cloak. I'm working on a bit of a project for her. But never mind what I'm doing, didn't you see what the dog was standing on?" Harry felt as though he could not speak right away. What was she doing here? Had she been following them all along? Could the cloak in her hands really make her _invisible?_

"Seeing much of your mother?" Draco prompted, surprising Harry. Saiph shook her head.

"I can only visit her every so often, you know. But they let me see her before term started...all thanks to your father, really." Everyone looked uncomfortable for a few minutes before Saiph spoke again.

"If you're curious, it's been standing on a trapdoor all term. I'm pretty sure it's guarding something. Umm, anyway, we should all probably be off to bed. You shouldn't go near the dog again...it's for everyone's own good that corridor's closed off this term."

Harry stared after her as she walked away, but Draco didn't seem quite as confused.

"Don't mind Saiph," he said after she was gone. "She's my cousin and she's always been a little...odd. Probably because her mother Bellatrix has been in prison since she was real little."

" _Prison_?! What for?"

"After...everything happened…" Draco said, with a casual reference to Harry's scar. "And the Dark Lord fell, I heard they tried to get Aunt Bellatrix to renounce him, but she never gave in."

"Saiph's mother...your aunt...supported _Voldemort_?"

"Sure, loads of people did."

"But then...maybe she or her mum knows what really happened to him," said Harry, but though Draco didn't say any more about her, Harry was sure he'd discovered who his "mysterious benefactor" was...not that he didn't have more to think about now, as he climbed back into his bed.

Saiph Lestrange, whose mother was in prison for supporting Voldemort, was investigating the forbidden corridor at night doing something for her mother...that was how she knew about the dog. Then there was the matter of the trap door she'd told them about...The dog was guarding something… and hadn't Dumbledore said Hogwarts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide? It looked as though Harry had found out where the grubby little package from vault 713 was.

 **A/N: Tried to get the new update up as quickly as I could. What do you think about Saiph Lestrange? I didn't want to use an OC, but seeing as we don't hear much about the girls in Slytherin in Harry's year in canon, I had to at least make up a couple of characters (though technically Hestia and Flora Carrow appear in the films). I also thought it would be boring to just do a complete re-write of the first book and wanted to take things a little in my own direction, which including Saiph especially allows me to do. If readers really don't like her, Im fine to swap her role in the story for Pansy's and make Pansy the main Slytherin character instead. Lemme know what you think!**

 **~SunDance**


	10. Chapter 10: Trolls and Triumphs

**Chapter 10: Trolls and Triumphs**

Ron Weasley couldn't believe his eyes when he saw that Harry and Draco were still at Hogwarts the next day, looking tired but perfectly cheerful. Indeed, by the next morning Harry and Draco thought that meeting the three-headed dog had been an excellent adventure, and they were quite keen to have another one.

In the meantime, Harry filled Draco in about the package that seemed to have been moved from Gringotts to Hogwarts, and they spent a lot of time wondering what could possibly need such heavy protection and why Saiph Lestrange and her mother could want it.

"It's either really valuable or really dangerous," said Draco. "Or both," said Harry. But as all they knew for sure about the mysterious object was that it was about two inches long, they didn't have much chance of guessing what it was without further clues. Neither Crabbe nor Goyle showed the slightest interest in what lay underneath the dog and the trapdoor. All they cared about was never going near the dog again. Saiph hadn't spoken to either of them since that night, but she hadn't spoken to them much before anyway, so it didn't matter to them.

A week later, Harry received his response from his relatives to the letter he'd sent them about making the Quidditch team. It came in the form of a long, thin package carried by six large screech owls aiding Hedwig. Almost as soon as they dropped the package in front of him, another owl followed up with a letter that skittered off the top of his pumpkin juice goblet and landed in his porridge.

Harry ripped open the letter first, which was lucky, because it said:

 _DO NOT OPEN THE PARCEL AT THE TABLE. It contains your new Nimbus Two Thousand from your aunt and uncle, but I don't want everybody knowing you've got a broomstick or they'll all want one. Marcus Flint will meet you tonight on the Quidditch field at seven o'clock for your first training session._

 _Professor Snape_

Harry had difficulty hiding his glee as he handed the note to Draco to read. "A Nimbus Two Thousand!" Draco moaned enviously. "I've wanted one for ages!"

They left the hall quickly, wanting to unwrap the broomstick in private before their first class, but halfway across the entrance hall they found the pathway barred by Gryffindors, among them, Ron Weasley and his twin brothers. Ron seized the package from Harry and felt it.

"That's a broomstick," he said, throwing it back to Harry with a mixture of jealousy and spite on his face. "You'll be in for it this time, Harry Potter, first years aren't allowed them."

Draco couldn't resist it. "It's not any old broomstick," he said, "it's a Nimbus Two Thousand...But what would you know...You couldn't afford half the handle!"

Before Ron could answer, Professor Sinistra, the Astronomy teacher, appeared at his elbow. "Not arguing, I hope, boys?" she said. She had a dry sort of voice, like she didn't really care what was going on but was only addressing it because they were in her way.

"Potter's been sent a broomstick, Professor," said Ron quickly.

"Yes, yes, that's right," said Professor Sinistra. She gave a curt nod in Harry's direction. "Professor Snape told me all about the special circumstances, Potter. And what model is it?"

"A Nimbus Two Thousand, Professor," said Harry, fighting not to laugh at the look of horror on Ron's face. "And it's really thanks to Weasley here that I've got it," he added.

Harry and Draco headed down to the dungeons, smothering their laughter at Ron Weasley's obvious rage and confusion. "Well, it's true," Harry chortled as they reached the bottom of the marble staircase, "If he hadn't challenged me I wouldn't be on the team..."

Harry had Transfiguration that afternoon and had more trouble than usual keeping his mind on what Professor McGonagall was saying. His thoughts kept wandering down to the Slytherin dormitory where his new broomstick was lying under his bed, or straying off to the Quidditch field where he'd be learning to play that night. She took ten points off of him when he failed to answer a question (due to not paying attention) for the second time in a row. A few of his classmates groaned, but Draco assured them that he'd earn them back in no time through Quidditch.

He bolted his dinner that evening without noticing what he was eating, and then rushed downstairs with Draco to unwrap the Nimbus Two Thousand at last. "Wow...even I'm impressed," Draco said, as the broomstick rolled onto Harry's bedspread. Even Harry, who knew nothing about the different brooms, thought it looked wonderful. Sleek and shiny, with a mahogany handle, it had a long tail of neat, straight twigs and Nimbus Two Thousand written in gold near the top.

As seven o'clock drew nearer, Harry left the castle and set off toward the Quidditch field. The sun had just started to set and cast an eerie pinkish glow over the grounds. There was smoke coming out of the chimney of Hagrid, the gamekeeper's, hut and it smelled like he was cooking something. Harry kept going, past the broomstick practice field and the Herbology greenhouses until he reached the Quidditch stadium.

Hundreds of seats were raised in stands around the field so that the spectators were high enough to see what was going on. At either end of the field were three golden poles with hoops on the end. They reminded Harry of the little plastic sticks Muggle children blew bubbles through, except that they were fifty feet high. Too eager to fly again to wait for Flint, Harry mounted his broomstick and kicked off from the ground. What a feeling - he swooped in and out of the goal posts and then sped up and down the field. The Nimbus Two Thousand turned wherever he wanted at his lightest touch. "Hey, Potter, come down!' Marcus Flint had arrived. The Slytherin captain was a looming fifth year boy with broad shoulders and very bad teeth, along with an imperious Quidditch reputation. It was rumored that his first knocked out tooth had been from a bludger to the face-and that he'd kept on flying despite it, even as flecks of his own blood flew off into the crowd.

Tonight, he was wearing shamrock-green robes and carrying a large wooden crate under his arm. Harry landed next to him. "Very nice," said Flint. "I see what Snape meant... you really are good. He just wants me to teach you the rules this evening, then you'll be joining team practice three times a week." He opened the crate. Inside were four different-sized balls.

"Right," said Flint. "Now, Quidditch is easy enough to understand, even if it's not too easy to play. There are seven players on each side. Three of them are called Chasers. Ours are Pucey, Montague, and me."

"Three Chasers," Harry repeated, as Flint took out a bright red ball about the size of a football.

"This ball's called the Quaffle," said Flint. "The Chasers throw the Quaffle to each other and try and get it through one of the hoops to score a goal. Ten points every time the Quaffle goes through one of the hoops. It's not hard, you just have to keep the other team's players from trying to grab your balls," Flint explained and then chuckled at his own stupid Dudleyish joke.

"The Chasers throw the Quaffle and put it through the hoops to score," Harry recited. "So - that's sort of like basketball on broomsticks with six hoops, isn't it?"

"What's basketball?" said Flint.

"Never mind," said Harry quickly.

"Now, there's another player on each side who's called the Keeper-Miles Bletchley is Keeper for Slytherin. He has to fly around our hoops and stop the other team from scoring."

"Three Chasers, one Keeper," said Harry, who was determined to remember it all. "And they play with the Quaffle. Okay, got that. So what are they for?" He pointed at the three balls left inside the box. Flint smirked.

"Take this." He handed Harry a small club, a bit like a short baseball bat. "More fun to show you what the Bludgers do than tell you," Flint said. "These two are the Bludgers." He showed Harry two identical balls, jet black and slightly smaller than the red Quaffle. They seemed to be making noise-like a growl, but high-pitched, as they strained to escape the straps holding them inside the box. Flint was laughing now as he bent down and freed one of the Bludgers. At once, the black ball rose high in the air and then pelted straight at Harry's face.

Harry swung at it with the bat to stop it from breaking his nose, and sent it zigzagging away into the air - it zoomed around their heads and then shot at Flint, who dived on top of it and managed to pin it to the ground, all the while continuing to guffaw with laughter.

"It might have been helpful…" Harry said carefully. "To tell me about those before setting one loose on me."

"Nah, better to have you work on your reflexes," Flint said as he slammed the struggling Bludger back into the crate and strapped it down. "So as you can see, Bludgers rocket around, trying to knock players off their brooms. That's why you have two Beaters on each team - Lucian Bole and Derrick Peregrine are ours - it's their job to protect their side from the Bludgers and try and knock them toward the other team. So -you got that Potter?"

"Three Chasers try and score with the Quaffle; the Keeper guards the goal posts; the Beaters keep the Bludgers away from their team," Harry reeled off.

"Good memory," said Flint. "Better watch it or you'll be top of the class and that's not too good for our image as a team." Harry couldn't tell if he was being serious or not, so he ignored him. "Now, the last member of the team is the Seeker. That's you."

Flint reached into the crate and took out the fourth and last ball. Compared with the Quaffle and the Bludgers, it was tiny, about the size of a large walnut. It was bright gold and had little fluttering silver wings. "This," said Flint, "is the Golden Snitch and it's the most important of all our 's the Seeker's job to catch it. You've got to weave in and out of the Chasers, Beaters, Bludgers, and Quaffle to get it before the other team's Seeker, because whichever Seeker catches the Snitch wins his team an extra hundred and fifty points, so they nearly always win."

Harry nodded in anticipation. He knew from reading _Quidditch Through the Ages_ that a match only ended when the Snitch was caught so they could keep going on forever if no one caught it. Harry had a sudden vision of himself, clad in the same shamrock green robes as Flint, soaring over the stadium and cheering crowds on his Nimbus Two Thousand, snitch in hand, winning so many points for Slytherin that even moody Saiph Lestrange had to smile.

"We won't practice with the Snitch yet," said Flint, tossing it back inside the crate, "it's too dark, we might lose it and I don't feel like dealing with it. Let's try you out with a few of these." He pulled a bag of ordinary golf balls out of his pocket and a few minutes later, he and Harry were up in the air, Flint throwing the golf balls as hard as he could in every direction for Harry to catch. Harry didn't miss a single one.

"That Quidditch cup'll have our name on it again this year," said Flint with a smirk as they trudged back up to the castle. "I wouldn't be surprised if you turn out better than Terrence Higgs, and he could have played for England if he hadn't gone off to work for the Ministry."

Perhaps it was because he was now so busy, what with Quidditch practice three evenings a week on top of all his homework, but Harry could hardly believe it when he realized that he'd already been at Hogwarts two months. The castle was starting to feel as much like home as Privet Drive. His lessons, too, were becoming more and more interesting now that they had mastered the basics.

On Halloween morning they woke to the delicious smell of baking pumpkin and cinnamon with subtle notes of clove wafting through the corridors. Even better, Professor Flitwick announced in Charms that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly, something they had all been dying to try since they'd seen him make a toad zoom around the classroom. Professor Flitwick put the class into pairs to practice. Draco's partner was Theodore Nott, but Harry, however, was to be working with Saiph Lestrange. He shrugged awkwardly as he grabbed his books and shuffled over to her. They hadn't spoken much at all since the night she caught them in the common room coming back from the forbidden corridor, though he still had the feeling she was the one occasionally slipping him helpful hints in classes.

"Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, perched on top of his pile of books as usual. "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too - never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest!"

It was very difficult. Harry swished and flicked, but the feather they were supposed to be levitating just lay on the desktop. Saiph didn't even seem to care to try. Her wand was perched at the end of the desk, untouched, while she pored over some kind of list she was writing on a loose piece of parchment. Harry happened a glance before she caught him looking and pushed it away from him, but could make out only a few words in a handwriting he knew well: ? _Scent? ?Sound? ?Taste?_ Each sensory word bookended by question marks.

Crabbe and Goyle, who had each been paired off with one of the Carrow twins at the next table, weren't having much more luck. Flora Carrow was rolling her eyes as Goyle waved his fat arms in the air like a confused baboon. Meanwhile, Crabbe had actually managed to set his feather on fire before Hestia Carrow put it out with her robe sleeve.

Two Ravenclaws were the first in the class to succeed in levitating their feather, closely followed by Blaise Zabini and Daphne Greengrass. Their feather rose off their desk and hovered about four feet above their heads. "Oh, well done!" cried Professor Flitwick, clapping.

"Come on, aren't you going to at least try?" Harry gave Saiph a casual nudge on the arm, but she tossed her long black hair over her face like a curtain.

"Sorry about my cousin," Draco said to Harry as they exited into the second floor corridor after class. "She's always been difficult, even when we were kids."

"Well, it has to be hard, don't you think? Everyone knowing who her mother is?" Someone knocked into Harry as they hurried past him. It was Saiph, and she looked furious.

"Mind your own business, Potter!" she said indignantly before hurrying off.

But the excitement of the afternoon kept Harry's thoughts from straying to Saiph's unusual behavior again. When he and Draco entered the Great Hall for the Halloween feast, Harry was startled to see the room's appearance had completely transformed just since lunch.

A thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins stutter. The feast appeared suddenly on the golden plates, as it had at the start-of-term banquet, and the tables were lined with jack-o-lantern heads stuffed with all kinds of candies, of both magical and muggle varieties. Harry was just helping himself to a baked potato when Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his face white and terrified. Everyone went silent and stared at him as he reached Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumped against the table, and gasped, "Troll - in the dungeons - thought you ought to know." He then sank to the floor in a dead faint. Silence was replaced by instant chaos. Harry and Draco smirked at each other while Goyle guffawed with laughter, but most of the hall went into mass panic. It took several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore's wand to restore any semblance of quiet order.

"Prefects," he rumbled, "lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!" Gemma Farley stood up at once and began to try to chorale the Slytherins into a cluster.

"Come along now, follow me! Stick together-yes, even you _older students_ could do well to set a better example!" Marcus Flint and Lucian Bole, it seemed, had decided to make a few rude comments about being herded around like first years and unluckily for them, they'd been within close earshot of Gemma.

"Stay close behind me, now! Make way, I'm a prefect!"

"How could a troll get in?" Harry asked as they exited the Great Hall.

"Don't ask me, they're supposed to be really stupid," said Draco.

"Probably someone's idea of a joke," said Pansy Parkinson, cutting in. "...and if you ask me, it's hilarious. Seeing all the teachers with their panties all twisted up…"

They passed different groups of people hurrying in different directions. As they jostled their way through a crowd of confused Hufflepuffs, Harry suddenly grabbed Draco's arm, causing him to stop fast and push into Pansy. "Look!" On the other side of the Hufflepuffs, was, unmistakeably, Saiph. As the Slytherins headed for the dungeons and the Hufflepuffs to their basement common room near the kitchens, Saiph was slinking off down a deserted corridor that Harry knew led upstairs.

"What's she doing?" Harry whispered. "Why isn't she going down to the dungeons with the rest of us?"

"Search me," said Draco.

"I'll bet you anything she's heading for the third floor," Harry said, but Pansy held up her hand.

"What are you doing?"

"She's going to try and get herself past that three-headed dog, I just know it. She's going to get herself killed!" Harry exclaimed. He and Draco looked at each other, knowing what they had to do.

"Where are you two going?"

"That's my cousin, we've got to try and stop her!"

Pansy rolled her eyes, but followed after them all the same as the broke away from the hordes of students-most of them Gryffindors and Ravenclaws-following their House prefects up to their dormitories. Quietly as possible, they separated from the group and crept along the corridor after Saiph's fading footsteps.


End file.
